Drugs to increase 'good' cholesterol may not cut deaths

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Drugs that have been investigated to increase so-called “good” cholesterol may not prevent deaths, heart attacks or strokes as many hoped, according to a new analysis. Due to limitations in existing studies and ongoing experiments involving these and other drugs, researchers not involved with the analysis caution that it’s too early to give up on medications that increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, however. “In the time before statins were available, there were several pieces of evidence that HDL-raising drugs reduce cardiovascular events, but since the time statins have been used there is now evidence that HDL-targeted therapies don’t do anything to decrease mortality,” said Dr. Darrel Francis, the study’s senior author from Imperial College London. Unlike low-density lipoprotein (LDL), which is the so-called “bad” cholesterol that piles up in blood vessels, HDL is considered good because it’s thought to chip away LDL cholesterol.



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