I Have Been Taking One Of The Statins. I Heard That Other Brands Of Statins May Be Better. Is This True?

Dr. Cannon answers the question: 'Are Some Brands Of Statins Better?'

ByABC News
December 24, 2008, 12:25 PM

— -- Question: I have been taking one of the statins. I recently heard that other brands of statins may be better. Is this true?

Answer: Amongst the statin drugs, we've seen that all of them are very effective, and those on the market have a good safety profile. There are not differences that have been seen from one to the other, but there are differences between doses and strength of the cholesterol medications.

Some are able to lower cholesterol by more than half. Others are a bit weaker and reduce the cholesterol by a quarter.

And so that difference is a very important one because you want to try and get your cholesterol down to the goal of less than 100 generally, and for many higher risk patients, less than 70 for the bad cholesterol.

And so the dose of the medication is a very important factor; exactly which one is not as big a factor.

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