Your Safety is our Priority! Masks May Be Required at Millennium Offices. Statins are a proven and popular prescription medication choice for people hoping to lower their cholesterol and they’ve been shown to help successfully manage your cholesterol and lower your risk of heart disease. But how do they do it? Millennium Physician Group Cardiologist Brian Taschner, MD, explains how these meds work their magic.
“These medications have been around for many years, really the most studied cholesterol medicines,” he says. “We know with a moderate dose of a potent statin, in someone that has cardiovascular disease, we’re going to reduce the risk of a heart attack or a stroke by 30%.”
Currently, more than 60% of older Americans who have high cholesterol take a statin. And the American Heart Association reports that in most cases, statins are the most effective lipid-lowering treatment.
“Essentially what they do is they block an enzyme in the liver where cholesterol is produced, and that’s the last step before cholesterol is produced,” explains Dr. Taschner. “So they block that enzyme, and really lower the ability of the liver to produce cholesterol.”
Statins are most effective at lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol, but they also help lower triglycerides and raise your good cholesterol. Before starting statins, talk to your provider about the possible side effects like minor muscle aches.
“For people who their quality of life has declined because they don’t feel well on the statins, there are some other options that have been proven, not just to lower the number, but to lower the risk of cardiovascular events, which really is our ultimate goal,” says Dr. Taschner