Cholesterol is a substance that the body needs to work properly, but having too much of it—especially LDL or “bad” cholesterol—can raise the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
To help lower cholesterol levels, doctors often prescribe medications called statins. These drugs reduce how much cholesterol the liver makes and have been used for many years to prevent heart disease.
While statins are helpful for many people, they don’t work for everyone. Some people experience side effects like muscle or joint pain, which can make it hard to keep taking the medicine. In other cases, statins alone aren’t enough to lower cholesterol to a safe level.
Now, there is a new option for people who can’t take statins or who need more help managing their cholesterol. The drug is called bempedoic acid, and it has shown promising results in recent research.
The findings were shared at ENDO 2023, a major meeting of hormone and metabolism experts. In a study called the CLEAR Outcomes Trial, researchers focused on people who couldn’t take statins because of side effects.
The results showed that bempedoic acid lowered LDL cholesterol by 21%. Even more importantly, it reduced the risk of heart problems by 13%.
The researchers also found that the way bempedoic acid helps prevent heart disease is similar to how statins work. This means the new drug could be a strong alternative for people who have not been able to manage their cholesterol levels with statins alone.
Dr. A. Michael Lincoff, one of the lead researchers, said this drug gives doctors another tool to fight heart disease—the leading cause of death worldwide. Having more treatment options is important because every patient is different, and not everyone responds the same way to the same medicine.
Bempedoic acid gives new hope to people who have been struggling to control their cholesterol. It shows how ongoing research can lead to better, safer treatments that help more people. If someone can’t take statins or needs extra help lowering their cholesterol, this new drug could be a life-saving option.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that vitamin K helps cut heart disease risk by a third, and a year of exercise reversed worrisome heart failure.
For more health information, please see recent studies about supplements that could help prevent heart disease, stroke, and results showing this food ingredient may strongly increase heart disease death risk.
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