The FDA) has announced labeling changes for simvastatin (Drug Zocor®, Merck), a cholesterol-lowering drug, as a result of The Heart Protection Study (HPS) findings. The new labeling will indicate that simvastatin is effective in reducing the risk of fatal and nonfatal heart attacks and strokes and in reducing the need for bypass surgery and angioplasty. [...]
Statins, customarily used to lower cholesterol levels, may have another newly discovered benefit. A multicenter study suggests that their newly identified immunomodulatory effects might be the key in treating relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). Researchers enrolled 30 patients who had not taken interferon or glatiramer in the previous three months or cortico-steroids within the previous 30 [...]
Twice-weekly simvastatin (Zocor generic, Merck) is just as effective, and perhaps safer, than daily doses of the drug, say researchers from Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs HealthCare System. They switched 31 patients from drug simvastatin 10 or 20 mg once a day to 40 or 80 mg once a week for 12 weeks and then compared [...]
The product label for generic ezetimibe/ medication simvastatin (Vytorin drug, Merck/Schering-Plough) may now show that it was more effective than generic rosuvastatin calcium (Crestor, AstraZeneca) in lowering low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels at all doses that were compared. In a study of 2,959 patients, high cholesterol levels were reduced by 52% to 61% with Vytorin 10/20 to [...]
Ezetimibe and simvastatin drug together were more effective in lowering low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, compared with either drug as monotherapy, say researchers from University of Rochester, New York, and Methodist DeBakey Heart Center and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In three identical prospective trials, patients were randomly assigned to [...]
