High cholesterol is a major risk factor for developing heart disease. There is a direct correlation, in fact, in the level of your cholesterol and potential chance of actually developing heart disease. Since heart disease kills more women in the US than any other disease and more than 1 million people in America have heart attacks each year with over half of those people suffering from heart disease there is a lot of reason behind controlling your cholesterol and other heart disease risk factors.
Cholesterol is a fat like substance that can build up in your arteries. Gradually, your arteries can harden and restrict blood flow throughout your body and specifically to your heart. If the blood supply is cut off, you will suffer a heart attack. Although a high cholesterol level does not, in itself, have symptoms you can have a simple blood test to determine your cholesterol level and whether or not it is too high. As you successfully control your cholesterol, you chances of developing heart disease drop.
Controlling your cholesterol can be done in a number of non-medical ways including managing your diet and making sure that you are eating a balanced and low fat array of healthy foods. You can also maintain a healthier weight and you can engage in more physical activity for at least 30 minutes per day. Cholesterol is made up of LDL, HDL and Triglycerides. LDL is considered bad cholesterol, HDL is considered good cholesterol because it prevents buildup in the arteries and triglycerides are another version of fat that lives in your bloodstream.
In some cases, managing your weight, diet and physical activity do not make enough of an impact on your bad levels of cholesterol and you may have to go on some kind of medication. The most popular family of drugs for treating high cholesterol is the statin drug family – or statins. Statins are the most powerful cholesterol lowering medication on the market and this family is home to well known drugs like Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor and Vytorin. These drugs are particularly effective at lowering bad cholesterol, or LDL levels by between 30% and 50%. This is not to say you should discontinue a healthy lifestyle when taking these medications, but the drugs are highly effective at targeting high cholesterol and preventing heart disease.
The problem with managing your health with medication is that you open yourself up to some potentially dangerous statin drug side effects. On drug in the statins family, Baycol, was ultimately withdrawn from the market because it posed too high a risk to consumers and too many Baycol side effects were recorded. Several people taking Baycol developed a condition called Rhabdomyolysis which breaks down muscle tissue, releasing toxins into the blood stream which then can cause kidney disease or kidney failure as the kidneys try to clean out the bloodstream. In several cases people died as a result of this dangerous statin drug side effect.
Everyone can react to a drug differently – known side effects of statins include muscle cramps and some gastrointestinal upset including nausea and vomiting, liver enzyme derangements and headaches. If you have been injured by a cholesterol lowering drug like Baycol, you should contact an experienced product liability attorney, medical malpractice attorney or a defective drug attorney to advise you on your case.