High cholesterol is one of the most common ailments plaguing Western society today. Millions are spent every year both on treatment and R&D. If you’ve been diagnosed with high cholesterol, there are quite a few different treatments you can choose from.
On a most basic level, treating cholesterol begins with your lifestyle. It involves reducing the fat in your diet, eating more fibers and exercising more. This will help eliminate the things that caused high cholesterol in the first place from your life; then start to reverse the process.
That said, treating high cholesterol also often involves using one or more prescription drugs. Prescription drugs are the fastest and most common way of quickly lowering cholesterol.
Here are a few of the most common treatment options.
==> Bile Acid Resins
Bile acids in your stomach are produced using cholesterol. What bile acid resins do is chemically bind themselves to the existing bile acids in your stomach.
This reduces the effectiveness of your stomach acid, which causes your body to compensate by producing even more bile acids – spending more cholesterol in the process.
==> HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitors
HMG-CoA reductase is a critical part of the cholesterol production process. The vast majority of the cholesterol in your body isn’t taken in from food, but produced by your own body.
By taking an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor, you prevent the body from effectively producing cholesterol. This quickly forces your body’s cholesterol down.
HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors are the most commonly used high cholesterol medications on the market.
==> Niacin
If for some reason you’re unable to get a prescription for other high blood pressure drugs, niacin is a popular alternative.
Niacin interacts directly with your liver, causing it to produce less cholesterol than it normally would.
The niacin in a pharmacy might also be labeled Vitamin B3.
==> Absorption Inhibitors
Absorption inhibitors block the absorption of cholesterols in foods into your blood stream.
Though absorption inhibitors are very effective at what they do, most cholesterol in the body is created inside the body rather than taken in from food.
As a result, absorption inhibitors really only have a small effect on cholesterol. If you really want to see a sharp drop in cholesterol levels, you’ll need to take another drug alongside absorption inhibitors.
==> Choosing Your Treatments
The first step to determining which treatment(s) you should use is to figure out what level of risk you’re considered. If you’re a Category I high risk case, you’ll need very different kinds of treatments than if you were Category IV, low risk.
Talk to your doctor about your various treatment options. Research options recommended by your doctor and make an informed decision as to which treatments you ultimately want to use.