A NEW TYPE of drug could be used to fight “bad cholesterol”.
The injections have been found to have few side effects for people who inherited the condition, which can lead to heart disease.
Published in The Lancet today, the results of two of the largest global randomised trials ever undertaken in the field found that the evolocumab injections quickly cut levels of LDL cholesterol by on average 60% more than a placebo group.
“Currently we have no alternative or additional drug treatment with strong LDL-lowering ability and good tolerability”*, explains lead investigator Professor Frederick Raal, Director of the Carbohydrate and Lipid Metabolism Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
In a linked comment, Professor Raul Santos of the University of Sao Paulo says that the treatment could become the standard treatment for high cholesterol.
This type of high cholesterol is caused ainly by genetic defects that make it difficult for the liver to remove bad cholesterol. More than 3 million people are estimated to have the disorder in the USA and Europe alone.
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