It can be somewhat discouraging to investors when a home remedy of lemon juice, honey, or spinach takes on drugs created by the likes of Merck (NYSE:MRK) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY), and the home remedy actually holds its own in the fight. Fortunately AtheroNova Inc. (OTC:AHRO) is in a position to redeem the pharmaceutical industry. The battleground is the war against cholesterol, or more specifically, the negative health effects of too much so-called bad cholesterol (LDL). Merck unveiled Zocor to treat the condition, and Bristol-Myers Squibb launched Pravachol; there are about thirteen major anti-cholesterol dugs out there right now. As time passes though, the pros of these treatments – mostly statins – are starting to diminish, while the ‘cons’ are starting to swell. It’s a trend that the likes of Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb should be worried about, since $40 billion worth of annual anti-cholesterol drug sales are at stake. It’s a trend AtheroNova Inc. is reveling in though, as it’s not missing the boat its bigger pharma brothers missed.As it turns out, lowering your cholesterol doesn’t necessarily decrease your odds of heart attack or cardiovascular health risks… once the root cause of those risks sets in. that root cause is plaque-covered arteries. Pravachol, Zocor, and all of their statin peers have been shown to remove cholesterol from the blood, but they generally don’t undo atherosclerosis – the covering of artery walls with hard, fatty deposits – unless dosed in dangerously-high quantities. AtheroNova’s lead drug candidate is an actual treatment for the dangerous condition.The AHRO biotechnology is founded on bile salts rather than on a statin molecule designed to inhibit HMG-CoA reductase. Statins crimp the amount of enzyme that ultimately leads to the creation of mevalonate – the molecule created right before ‘cholesterol’ is formed in the liver. The problem is, by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase, the drug’s mechanism has also been observed to cause other problems, including the inhibited production of so-called ‘good cholesterol (HDL). Bile salts occur naturally in the body, in that they’re reduced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder, for the purpose of digesting some fats and to prevent certain toxins from being stored in the body’s fat. in many ways, bile salts are a body’s garbage men.It’s not exactly a new idea for the health-savvy. Bile salts have been used as OTC health supplements to treat psoriasis, septicemia, and constipation just to name a few. and, people at heart disease risk who are also health supplement consumers are no stranger to putting heart-related ailments on the list of targets. everything from fish oil also vera gel to garlic to lemon juice have been used with the intent of eating away at arterial plaque. AtheroNova Inc. is taking a similar ‘organic’ approach, but building its drug directly based on the mechanism that the body itself uses to fight artery plaque as best it can. That’s where Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and others fall short. It’s still a long road to pave for AHRO owners, but that’s biotech. any milestones met in the meantime as the drug makes its way through the development gauntlet are likely to be rewarded.

Blaming cholesterol med for achy muscles

BY MICHAEL ROIZEN AND MEHMET OZ Jan 31, 2011 06:02PM

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Q. I take the minimum dose of the statin drug simvastatin once a day for my cholesterol. I used to take Crestor. Simvastatin doesn’t do as good a job ­­­— my LDL is still a little high and my HDL is a little low — but Crestor made my muscles ache. is there a way to avoid taking a bigger dose of simvastatin? a. At the Cleveland Clinic, where Dr. Mike works, a novel regimen is being used to help people like you, who get achy from powerful statins (Crestor’s one) but who aren’t helped enough by milder statins.

The new Cleveland approach is a spin on combination therapy: You continue your usual daily low dose of simvastatin, then twice a week (say on Tuesday and Saturday) add a low dose (5 mg) of rosuvastatin (Crestor).

This regimen gives your heart-healthy HDL cholesterol a major boost while lowering lousy, artery-clogging LDL by 80 percent — all without causing muscle aches.

(You may be able to stop the simvastatin if the low dose of Crestor is enough.) Talk to your doc about this.

Most docs in our Wellness Institute also advise coenzyme Q10, 200 mg a day, every day, to help decrease the risk of muscle pain.

Q. I’ve been on a statin drug for a couple of years, and my cholesterol is still going up, even though I’ve become a vegetarian. My doctor just upped my statin dose. I’m “of a certain age,” so could perimenopause have anything to do with it?

a. Maybe. Starting to go through “the change” changes more than just your periods and your internal thermostat.

On average, lousy cholesterol jumps 10.5 points, or about 9 percent, as women journey through menopause, found the Study of Women’s Health across the Nation.

But it also could be a number of other things. First, get your thyroid checked.

Some menopausal symptoms (hot flashes, dry skin, mood swings, weight gain) also are signs of an over- or underactive thyroid. plus, an impaired thyroid can make your cholesterol wacky.

A sluggish thyroid, for example, may raise lousy LDL cholesterol as well as triglycerides, and may put you in the queue for heart disease and high blood pressure. New studies suggest that this can happen even if your thyroid is only a bit off.

Ironically, your cholesterol troubles also could be from your vegetarian diet. if you replaced meat with a lot of full-fat cheese, milk, yogurt and baked goods, you’re still eating a lot of saturated fat, which sends cholesterol soaring.

Q. I recently had a thyroid test that came back abnormal. My doctor says it may be a false positive because I’m on a statin drug. what does one have to do with the other?

a. a couple of years ago, a group of Texas researchers played a hunch and took a second look at more than 300 people with low thyroid stimulating hormone, a sign of an overactive thyroid gland. When they ran a more specialized test (a radioactive iodine scan), about half of those taking a statin drug turned out to have normal thyroids.

Most of those not taking statins really did have overactive thyroids, which can cause heart palpitations, anxiety, muscle weakness and sleep problems.

Statins may lower TSH without actually affecting thyroid function, and that could be what your doc suspects happened to you.

It’s worth asking your doc for a more specialized test.

To submit questions, go to RealAge.com.

King Features Syndicate

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People who take cholesterol-lowering statins for at least one to two years appear to be less likely to develop gallstones, a study of nearly two million Danish residents shows.

Among those receiving at least five prescriptions for the drugs, the risk of developing gallstones fell by 11 to 24 percent — and the more prescriptions, the larger the decrease.

People who had just started taking statins, meanwhile, had a higher risk of developing gallstones, which form when bile stored in the gallbladder hardens into pieces of stone-like material.

That makes sense, study author Dr. Rune Erichsen of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark told Reuters Health. People are prescribed statins to lower their cholesterol, which is one of the ingredients in gallstones. What's more, high cholesterol is tied to obesity, poor diet, and other factors that can increase the risk of gallstones.

"This is the reason that we find an increased gallstone disease risk in patients (who) just started taking statins," Erichsen said. But after a while on statins, those risks appeared to diminish, which squares with earlier research.

Some gallstones are tiny, while others can be as large as a golf ball. often they cause no symptoms, but if they become lodged in the wrong place — blocking the outlet from the gallbladder or pancreas, for instance — they can cause inflammation and severe pain. Depending on the country, between six and 50 percent of adults in the Western world eventually develop some form of gallstone disease.

Statins, too, are common in the Western world. they are prescribed more than any other class of medications in the U.S. and used by about one in five adults. their cost ranges widely, from $11 to more than $200 per month, and they have been shown to increase the rates of liver dysfunction, kidney failure, muscle weakness and cataracts in some populations.

To investigate further how statins impact gallstones, Erichsen and colleagues reviewed nationwide data collected from 1.7 million people living in Northern Denmark. Nearly 33,000 people developed gallstones between 1996 and 2008.

Reporting in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the authors found that more five percent of people who developed gallstones also took statins — slightly more than among those without gallstones.

But after accounting for diseases tied to gallstones, such as liver and heart problems, people with at least five statin prescriptions had lower rates of gallstones than people who didn't take the drug.

Those with 20 or more prescriptions, for instance, had a 24-percent decrease in their chances of developing gallstones compared with non-users.

In an e-mail, Erichsen noted that the study cannot prove that statins directly caused the decrease.

"However, in the specific issue of statins and gallstone disease, there is compelling evidence that long-term statin use reduces the risk of gallstone disease," the researcher concluded. "Statins reduce the synthesis of cholesterol, so less cholesterol is excreted in the liver, and the risk of gallstone disease eventually seems to decrease."

SOURCE: link.reuters.com/tuc47q American Journal of Epidemiology, published November 17, 2010.