When these data were analysed, Dr Barefoot and his colleagues found that wine-drinkers ate less saturated fat and cholesterol, smoked less, and were more active than the rest.
By itself, Zetia is far less powerful than the cholesterol-lowering medicines known as statins, such as Zocor, Lipitor and Pravachol.
Given by itself, it is less powerful than current cholesterol drugs like Merck's Zocor and Pfizer 's (nyse: PFE - news - people ) Lipitor, which work by preventing the liver from turning fat into cholesterol.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School found patients with either of two mutations--single-letter changes in their DNA--saw their cholesterol decrease by about 20% less than other patients when they took the same cholesterol-lowering drug, Bristol-Myers Squibb 's (nyse: BMY - news - people ) Pravachol.
Patients in the exercise group reported lower cholesterol levels and less back pain than those in the control group.
But some plans require patients to take less-expensive generic versions of cholesterol drugs except in special circumstances, and many states require pharmacies to fill prescriptions with lower-priced generics.
Researchers speculating about what went wrong thought perhaps torcetrapib made HDL that didn't work, or that HDL itself (short for high-density lipoprotein, and often called "good cholesterol") was less powerful than they thought.
Pfizer presented data on the drug that showed that it raised good cholesterol--although by less than some analysts expected.
This is not a medicine that is likely to be used in patients with garden variety high cholesterol, or even those with less serious versions of the genetic disease FH.
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When the blockbuster cholesterol pill Vytorin failed to best a less potent generic in a clinical trial earlier this year, many cardiologists were shocked.
Zetia (generically known as ezetimibe) lowers low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the bad cholesterol involved in causing heart attacks and strokes, but less so than existing drugs like Lipitor (generically known as atorvastatin), Crestor, from AstraZeneca, or simvastatin.
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The first two studies shown at the American College of Cardiology conference yesterday may have actually given investors pause: They showed that, in patients for whom Lipitor and Zocor had been working well, Zetia provided an additional drop in cholesterol of at most 13.8%--less than many analysts had hoped, given earlier results.
The mutation carriers had less artery calcification, indicating that they had healthier hearts as well as higher HDL (good cholesterol), and lower triglycerides and LDL (bad cholesterol).
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In particular, it doesn't cause elevated cholesterol levels like the other medicines, although Kay worries that it also may be less powerful than Kaletra, from Abbott Laboratories (nyse: ABT - news - people ).
If all cholesterol drugs were created equal, it would be a simple matter to encourage patients to switch to the less-expensive generic versions.
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