By Dr. W. Gifford Jones
March 25, 2001
Are you tired of hearing friends talk about their cholesterol level? Have you had your cholesterol level tested? What drug are you taking? How important is the amount of triglyceride in the blood? The questions go on and on. Now, there are new more potent drugs to help lower blood cholesterol.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in this country. And getting older is indeed dangerous. For instance, the mortality rate for heart disease under the age of 40 is less than 10 per 100,000 people. For those over 74 years of age it's more than 1,000 per 100,000.
It doesn't take a crystal ball to forecast the future. As this country's population ages there will be a huge increase in cardiovascular disease. This means more high©cost procedures such as coronary artery bypass surgery. And we all know that our health care system is on its financial knees. So what's the answer?
The ideal death is to succumb to a heart attack at age 90 while making love. That's a very low cost death. What costs big dollars is developing heart disease in the prime of life. And unless a family history of heart disease is involved the cause is too often due to faulty lifestyle.
What people forget is that heart attack was a rare disease 100 years ago. Today it's easy to pinpoint what's gone wrong. Andre Gide, the French novelist and philosopher, once started a lecture by saying, "All this has been said before, but since nobody was listening it must be said again".
That's why I repeat. Don't become obese and develop diabetes. Don't smoke. Make exercise a daily habit. Use alcohol moderately if you drink. And trust the farmer's produce rather than salt and sugar laden packaged foods.
But in 2001 many people will fail to practice prevention and will develop diseased coronary arteries. Several studies have also demonstrated the association between high blood cholesterol and narrowed arteries.
If tests show you have a high blood cholesterol level, you lose nothing by trying to lower it with lifestyle changes. For instance, exercise lowers total cholesterol and converts some of the bad cholesterol (LDL) into good cholesterol (HDL).
But if such beneficial behaviour has little or no effect on your level doctors often prescribe cholesterol©lowering drugs. This may halt the progression of coronary disease and prevent fatal heart attack.
The time©honoured cholesterol©lowering drugs are called "statins". Now, a new generation of statins, such as Baycol, are more potent.
One major difference between this drug and the older ones is its superior ability to lower triglyceride, one of the blood fats. But it also lowers LDL the bad cholesterol.
Dr. Patrick Ma, Director of the Lipid Clinic, Calgary, Alberta, says, "Baycol is as effective as the other new generation statin at reaching lipid target levels".
Dr Ma added that, "Only 40 percent of patients taking older statins currently reach their lipid targets." But up to 96 percent of patients on Baycol did reach projected cholesterol levels. And the increase in good cholesterol was more than twice that obtained with the other statin in the study.
Dr Jean©Francois Yale at the McGill Nutrition and Food Science Centre reports an important point. Today many people are taking more than one prescription medication. This sets the stage for potential drug interactions as anything that enters the body has to be eliminated eventually.
Baycol has a unique way to decrease this risk. When two or more drugs are taken they compete with one another to gain access to our metabolic pathways. It is through these pathways that drugs are eventually removed from the body.
The majority of drugs, however, are only capable of going through only one exit. Baycol, on the other hand, has two metabolic outlets.
By having two exits there's less chance of toxicity due to accumulation of the drug. In effect, if one metabolic exit is overloaded and blocked it can be flushed out the other outlet.
Any precautions? Patients taking Baycol or any of the other statins should limits alcoholic drinks to 10 to 14 per week. And those with liver disease, pregnant women who breast feed and those trying to become pregnant should not use this medication.
The chance of side©effects with Baycol are minimal even using the new and higher 0.8 milligram dose. Two percent of patients complained of gastrointestinal discomfort and two percent had headaches. Symptoms such as dizziness, skin rashes, unexplained muscle tenderness, general weakness and fever should be reported to the doctor.
W. Gifford-Jones M.D is the pen name of Dr. Ken Walker graduate of Harvard. Dr. Walker's website is: Docgiff.com
My book, �90 + How I Got There� can be obtained by sending $19.95 to:
Giff Holdings, 525 Balliol St, Unit # 6,Toronto, Ontario, M4S 1E1
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