Background: In November 2013, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) together issued new guidelines for the treatment of patients with high cholesterol, providing a new paradigm for the management of cholesterol in the primary and secondary prevention of coronary artery disease.
Objective: To examine the impact of the 2013 ACC/AHA cholesterol treatment guidelines on pharmacy utilization of cholesterol-lowering drugs in a real-world managed care setting.
Methods: Pharmacy claims from OptumRx, a national pharmacy benefit management provider, for the period between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2013 (baseline period), were used to identify candidates for cholesterol-lowering therapy and to estimate the number of potential patients who will be starting or intensifying statin therapy based on the updated cholesterol treatment guidelines. Potential candidates for cholesterol-lowering treatments included patients with diabetes or hypertension aged 40 to 75 years who were not already receiving a cholesterol-lowering medication, as well as patients receiving cholesterol-lowering therapies during the baseline period. The baseline cholesterol-lowering medication market share was used to project changes in pharmacy utilization over the next 3 years.
Results: Based on the 2013 ACC/AHA cholesterol treatment guidelines, there will be a 25% increase in the proportion of the overall population that is treated with statins over the next 3 years, increasing from 3,909,407 (27.7%) patients to 4,892,668 (34.7%) patients. The largest proportion of the increase in statin utilization is projected to be for primary prevention in patients aged 40 to 75 years who were not receiving any cholesterol-lowering treatment at baseline. These projected changes will increase the overall number of statin prescriptions by 25% and will decrease the number of nonstatin cholesterol-lowering medication prescriptions by 68% during the next 3 years.
Conclusion: The new 2013 ACC/AHA cholesterol treatment guidelines are projected to have a significant impact on the utilization of cholesterol-lowering drugs by increasing the overall proportion of the population receiving statin therapy and by decreasing the utilization of nonstatin cholesterol-lowering medications.
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Unlabelled: One of the principles of prevention and non-drug treatment of liver diseases, including hepatitis of various etiologies, is the normalization of the diet, including the use of daily diet foods with physiologically active ingredients, in particular betulin, which helps to reduce metabolic and oxidative processes within liver cells. The aim of the work was to evaluate the in vivo effect of triterpene alcohol betulin Roth isolated from the bark of birch Betula pendula Roth. added to fat-containing products (for example, mayonnaise) on the biochemical parameters of blood and the morphological structure of the liver of rats with initiated acute toxic hepatitis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Cardiol Rep
January 2025
John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute, Ochsner Clinical School University of Queensland School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Purpose Of Review: To provide a narrative overview of trends and disparities in the cardiometabolic profiles of U.S. adults by synthesizing findings from nationally representative studies conducted between 1999 and 2020.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Cardiovasc Drugs
January 2025
Springer Nature, Private Bag 65901, Mairangi Bay, Auckland, 0754, New Zealand.
Oral bempedoic acid (NEXLETOL in the USA; Nilemdo in the EU) and the fixed dose combination (FDC) of bempedoic acid/ezetimibe (NEXLIZET in the USA; Nustendi in the EU) are approved to reduce cardiovascular (CV) risk in statin-intolerant patients who are at high risk for, or have, CV disease. A first-in-class therapy, bempedoic acid inhibits the adenosine triphosphate-citrate lyase enzyme in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway. In the multinational phase III CLEAR Outcomes trial in statin-intolerant patients, once-daily bempedoic acid 180 mg significantly reduced the risk of the primary endpoint (a four-component major adverse CV event composite of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or coronary revascularization) compared with placebo.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Endocrinol (Lausanne)
January 2025
Department of Endocrinology, Jiangsu Province Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
Objective: Previous observational studies suggest a potential link between gut microbiota, metabolites, and diabetic nephropathy. However, the exact causal relationship among these factors remains unclear.
Method: We conducted a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization study using summary statistics from the IEU OpenGWAS Project database to investigate gut microbiota, metabolites, and diabetic nephropathy.
Front Pharmacol
January 2025
School of Pharmacy, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Abnormal cholesterol metabolism has become a popular therapeutic target in cancer therapy. In recent years there has been a surge in interest in the anti-tumor activities of saponins, particularly their ability to disrupt cholesterol homeostasis in tumor cells. Cholesterol regulation by saponins is a complex process that involves multiple mechanisms.
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