Posts Tagged ‘high cholesterol’

Study finds link between breast cancer and diabetes, obesity

Saturday, December 17th, 2011

Women with diabetes may be at a higher risk for breast cancer, as well as those who become obese as senior citizens, according to HealthDay.

While past studies have shown evidence of a connection between the two diseases, the link has not been sufficiently clear and further research was reportedly warranted.

Swedish researcher Dr. Hakan Olsson, of Lund University’s oncology department, analyzed the health information of more than 2,700 women over the course of a decade prior to developing breast cancer. He compared this data with the records of more than 20,000 healthy patients.

According to the news provider, obese women over the age of 60 were at a 55 percent higher risk of breast cancer. Additionally, the risk increased by 37 percent within four years of a diabetes diagnosis.

“Olsson also found a link between abnormally low levels of blood lipids or fats, mostly cholesterol, and a 25 percent higher risk of breast cancer. Women with higher cholesterol had a lower risk, he found,” reported the source.

Because the results of the study are so complicated, Olsson emphasized that further research must be done in order to clarify his findings. Part of the complex findings included both increased and decreased risk of breast cancer with various diabetes treatments.

The Swedish researcher presented his research last week at the 2011 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

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Posted in Breast Cancer, Cancer, Conditions, Diabetes | No Comments »

High cholesterol treatment Lipitor officially goes generic

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

One of the most popular drugs in the nation, Lipitor, has officially gone generic, making it much less expensive for patients with high cholesterol to receive treatment, reports HealthDay.

The drug, known as atorvastatin, is one of many medications with a recently expired patent that has gone generic. Generic treatments can sell for up to 80 percent lower than the brand name cost, according to the Wall Street Journal, which means Lipitor is now more widely accessible to a number of patients in need.

“Atorvastatin is a very good medication and quite effective at lowering LDL cholesterol,” Dr. Robert Ostfeld, New York City cardiologist, told the news source. “I think that having a generic will be a wonderful addition because, unfortunately, some of our patients have to make the very painful decision between paying the rent and taking their medication and any time we can reduce the cost without sacrificing efficacy, that’s a wonderful thing.”

The source reports that many people do not take this high cholesterol treatment properly, taking it less frequently or not at all in order to save money. Doctors hope that the move to generic will reduce this misuse of the the medication.

Other statin brands that have recently gone generic include Zocor, Pravachol and Mevacor.

More than 21 million prescriptions for Lipitor were dispensed from January to June of this year, totaling close to $4 billion, reports IMS Health.

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Posted in Conditions, High Cholesterol | 1 Comment »

Top-selling drugs to go generic, significantly lowering costs

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Coping with a condition often means having to deal with the high cost of health care as well, which can create quite a hardship when one’s medications carry sky-high price tags. However, some of the nation’s most popular drugs are about to become less expensive, reports The Associated Press.

Out of the 20 best-selling medications in the world, nearly half will be offered in generic form by 2012, drastically reducing costs for patients. According to the news source, the seven drugs going generic include Lipitor, typically prescribed for high cholesterol, and Plavix, a blood thinner, both of which should be offered by next September.

A number of other brand-name drugs will be getting generic competition within the next year as well for conditions like hypertension, asthma, diabetes, depression, bipolar disorder and more. The AP states that generic medications can cost up to 80 percent less than the big-name companies.

Additionally, London research firm EvaluatePharma has found that 120 top-selling drugs raking in approximately $255 billion each year internationally will see their patents expire by 2016.

Medical professionals are looking forward to the expiring drug patents so that their patients can begin treating themselves properly. Dr. Nieca Goldberg of Manhattan’s NYU Langone Medical Center has noticed a trend in which some patients are not filling prescriptions or not taking their medications enough in order to save money.

“‘You can pretty much tell by the numbers when I check the patient’s blood pressure or cholesterol levels” that they are not taking the drugs in line with the doctor’s orders, she told the AP.

According to the news provider, the generic version of Lipitor will be available at pharmacies on Nov. 30 for approximately $10 per month.

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Statin therapy shown to cause diabetes, study says

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Got high cholesterol? You may want to stay away from statin therapy, as new studies in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) support the claim that this type of treatment actually causes diabetes.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, approximately 40 million Americans are recommended to take statin therapy. This figure rose from 13 million people, all of whom were diagnosed with heart disease. The additional numbers come from those who are using statins to treat high cholesterol, a method referred to as “primary prevention.”

One of the new studies in JAMA found that over the course of nearly five years, 8.4 percent of non-diabetic patients treated with statins developed the disease. Those who were given the highest doses of statins were also at the highest risk of becoming diabetic. Mark Hyman, a family physician and chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine, does not believe that the success rate of statin therapy in patients without diabetes is strong enough to take the risk of developing the condition.

“You have to treat 155 people for one year to prevent just one heart attack or death,” Hyman says, summarizing a portion of the study. “On top of that, for every 498 people treated, one more person would become diabetic.”

If doctors continue prescribing the statins, Hyman claims that there will be more than 3.5 million new cases of diabetes by 2020.

The second JAMA study revealed that “powerful immune suppressing medications (TNF alpha blockers like Remicade or Enbrel” helped to decrease the risk of diabetes. While this may sound like a good alternative, patients could face expenses of approximately $50,000 annually for this treatment, and it comes with potentially fatal side effects.

It seems that these treatment options are a lose-lose situation, but Hyman simply suggests turning one’s lifestyle around.

“A plant-based, whole foods, real-food diet without sugar and flour in pharmacologic doses, along with anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats, and a good dose of exercise, can dramatically reduce the risk of and even reverse heart disease and diabetes,” he said. “And they cost a lot less.”

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Posted in Conditions, Diabetes, Heart Disease | No Comments »