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American Morning
New Cholesterol Guidelines to Place Millions on Heart Medication
Aired May 15, 2001 - 09:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to your health: The government wants to see high cholesterol treated more aggressively. This morning, new treatment guidelines are coming out.
And CNN's Washington medical correspondent Rea Blakey is live now with the details -- good morning, Rea.
REA BLAKEY, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.
The new guidelines being announced by the National Institutes of Health right now will nearly triple the number of people taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs, including millions with no current sign of heart disease.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Cardiologist Stuart Seides shows no signs of heart disease. And though his cholesterol and blood pressure are normal, he still takes cholesterol-lowering medication. Why? Because he does have a family history of heart disease, a risk factor the American Heart Association says should be addressed, even before symptoms appear.
DR. DAVID MEYERSON, AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION: We can now begin to identify people who, in 10 years or 15 years, will develop heart disease. Those people, we want to make their course correction early.
BLAKEY: Like Dr. Seides, millions of people with no clinical symptoms of heart disease may soon be taking cholesterol-lowing drugs. Research shows a class of drugs called statins not only lower cholesterol, reduce inflammation and prevent heart attacks, the widely prescribed drugs also reduce strokes and help prevent death in the event of a stroke or a heart attack.
MEYERSON: This is truly preventable disease. There are 100 million people in the United States with high cholesterol. There are at least 40 million people with levels that are very dangerously high.
BLAKEY: Many cardiologists are already putting diabetics on statin drugs, treating them as if they have heart disease.
DR. STUART SEIDES, CARDIOLOGIST: We find that a diabetic patient who has not had any clinical heart trouble is at the same risk of having a heart attack as a nondiabetic who's already had one.
BLAKEY: There are six statin drugs currently on the market: Mevacor, Lescol, Pravochol, Zocor, Lipitor, and Baycol. After almost 20 years of widespread usage, the incidence of adverse side effects is relatively low.
About 5 percent suffer liver or muscle toxicity. Heart disease experts believe the drugs can be safely prescribed to even more people at risk of heart disease, including those who may not develop symptoms for years to come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLAKEY: The nation's newest cholesterol guidelines focus more on reducing bad cholesterol, or LDL. It's recommended that healthy adults have their LDL checked at least every five years. The experts say that could reduce the short-term risk of having a heart attack by 40 percent. Still, smoking cessation, diet and exercise continue to play an important role in reducing your risk for heart disease -- Leon.
HARRIS: All right, Rea, well explain something for us this morning before you go. What's the difference -- the connection rather -- between heart disease and diabetes?
BLAKEY: The researchers are still trying to pinpoint that, but they know there's something called the metabolic syndrome, which specifically is linked to weight management and most importantly insulin resistance, which is where is the diabetes comes in.
What they do know is, if they can control that, they can also reduce the possibility of a diabetic having a heart attack -- something that many diabetics aren't aware of and it's an early stage -- a precursor to coronary heart disease.
So if they can control that, early on, 10 years in advance, then the chances of having a heart attack later on are greatly reduced.
HARRIS: All right, well good deal -- before we let you go, we want to let folks know that you're a new member of the family here at CNN and we sure are glad to have you aboard.
BLAKEY: Well, thank you very much, Leon. It's nice to be here.
HARRIS: All right, we'll be talking to you much down the road. Take care.
BLAKEY: OK.
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