Lipitor

FDA approves new cholesterol medication

Nature World News reports that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the anti-cholesterol drug Liptruzet.

According to the story, Liptruzet is a combination of Merck’s Zetia, which lowers low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and a generic version of Pfizer’s Lipitor, which lost its patent protection in 2011.

Lipitor has recently generated some health concerns.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added warnings to Lipitor’s label, advising that the medication may increase the ...

continue reading...

Few cholesterol drugs in the works

Despite the fact that high cholesterol triggering heart attacks and strokes is the biggest killer in the United States, few companies are developing new drugs to treat the condition, according to a report in Forbes.

Forbes attributes that situation in part to a series of high profile failures from Pfizer, Merck , and AstraZeneca. Cheap generic versions of popular medicines including Pfizer’s Lipitor have also likely chased off some potential developers.

Lipitor ...

continue reading...

Lipitor studies withdrawn because of flaws

Researchers have withdrawn three substudies of the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor, after Pfizer – the company that both manufactures the drug and sponsored the clinical trial – discovered an error.

A story in Forbes says blood samples from the study had been matched to the wrong participants. According to story, the study results had been published in the New England Journal of medicine in 2005. They had a major impact on clinical ...

continue reading...

Dr. Oz guests discuss cholesterol drugs

Surgeon and television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz brought Dr. Stephen Sinatra and nutrition guru Johnny Bowden on his show to raise awareness of the risks connected with the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, according to a story on the Examiner.com.

Sinatra and Bowden warn that taking statins can result in dangerous side-effects, such as memory loss, fatigue and muscle pain.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has added warnings to the labels ...

continue reading...

Study: Risks from cholesterol drugs higher than thought

A recent study indicates that the number of people suffering side effects after taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins is higher than previously reported, according to NPR.

Researchers who conducted the study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, looked at more than 100,000 people who’d been prescribed statins from 2000 through 2008 at two academic medical centers. They found that 17 percent of patients taking the pills reported side effects, ...

continue reading...

Researchers say statins are over-prescribed

Researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor have published the results of a survey that concluded many doctors are too quick to prescribe the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins.

A Reuters story on the findings quotes Dr. Franz Messerli, who runs the hypertension program at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, as saying: “Many physicians are trigger happy, and do just prescribe a statin, which obviously is not ...

continue reading...
Page 7 of 9 «...56789