New Cholesterol Breakthroughs Help Reduce LDL Levels, Heart Attack Risk
Merck's new pill, enlicitide, and Amgen's longtime Repatha shot are showing heart attack risk-lowering potential, and researchers have made progress on the gene-editing front.
Merck, the company that introduced statins to the world nearly 40 years ago, has a new, intensely powerful pill that can slash levels of dangerous LDL cholesterol to levels almost never seen in adults. The new pill, enlicitide, blocks a liver protein, PCSK9, that slows the bodys ability to clear cholesterol. With most PCSK9 blocked, LDL levels plummet and rates of heart attacks and strokes in high risk patients fall by up to 20 percent in just the first year. At least six million adults in the United States are eligible for drugs that block PCSK 9. (Kolata, 11/8)
A cholesterol-lowering injection thats been on the market for nearly a decade has now shown its power to cut cardiovascular events in people considered at high risk but who havent yet suffered a heart attack or stroke. (Cooney, 11/8)
With a snip of a gene, doctors may one day permanently lower dangerously high cholesterol, possibly removing the need for medication, according to a new pilot study published Saturday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (LaMotte, 11/8)
A statin isnt the only answer anymore to lowering cholesterol. The lipid-reducing medicines, among the most widely prescribed drugs in the U.S., have been a mainstay of heart-disease prevention and treatment for decades. But they dont work for everyone, and can only reduce harmful bad cholesterol so much. (McKay, 11/8)
In science news
He co-discovered DNAs structure but later engaged in rank racism and sexism. (Begley, 11/7)
The laws of inheritance are quite unknown, Charles Darwin acknowledged in 1859. The discovery of DNAs shape altered how we conceived of life itself. (Zimmer, 11/7)
