New Benefits of Crestor

Ivanhoe Newswire
Monday, March 26, 2007; 12:00 AM

By Lucy Williams, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Doctors prescribe statins to help patients improve their cholesterol, but there may be a new reason to take one lipid-lowering drug. Rosuvastatin (Crestor), like other older drugs in its class have proven to do, slows the thickening of arteries that often leads to heart disease, recent research reveals.

Lipid-lowering therapy is known to reduce strokes and heart attacks.

"The breakthrough here is that, previously, Crestor had been shown to affect blood levels of cholesterol," lead author John R. Crouse III, M.D., of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., told Ivanhoe. "What this study does is show Crestor not only lowers the level of the bad cholesterol and raises the level of good cholesterol, but it also has benefit on the wall of the artery, which is where heart attacks and strokes come from."

Statins may slow or even halt the progression of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Researchers studied the effects of statin therapy on 984 middle-aged people with low risk for cardiovascular disease. Researchers found a daily dose of 40 milligrams of rosuvastatin slowed the progression of arterial thickening. But although rosuvastatin prevented thickening of the arteries, it did not reverse previous damage.

After two years of statin therapy, patients also experienced a reduction of LDL (low-density lipoproteins or "bad" cholesterol) levels by 49 percent, an increase in HDL (high-density lipoproteins or "good" cholesterol) levels by 8 percent, and a reduction in triglycerides by 16 percent.

Dr. Crouse said this study is unique because participants had relatively low risk for cardiovascular disease based on known factors such as blood pressure and history of diabetes and heart attack, but they showed signs of arterial thickening. Atherosclerosis can be a silent, but deadly condition. Dr. Crouse said further research is necessary to identify patients with atherosclerosis who do not carry other risk factors for heart disease.