Experimental Cholesterol Drug Raises Blood Pressure:
A new drug being tested by Pfizer that raises the amount of HDL cholesterol also triggers an increase in blood pressure in some patients, offsetting any benefit according to experts. A complete report of the research will be presented next week at an annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Orlando.
The experimental drug in question, torcetrapib, could be Pfizer’s newest “miracle drug,” unseating Lipitor which averages $10 billion in sales annually. The company’s long-range game plan: To combine torcetrapib in a single tablet with the widely marketed Lipitor.
The results of mid-stage drug trials as well as a separate trial documented in the New England Journal of Medicine included patients taking a variety of doses of torcetrapib as high as 120 mg. Because Pfizer is also concerned about the small hikes in blood pressure, one market analyst said, the mega-drug company opted for dropping the dose of torcetrapib down to 60 mg in late-stage trials that are much larger.
If you’re having problems lowering your cholesterol, there’s no good reason at all to resort to taking any kind of statin drug. And particularly when recently revised health guidelines were provided by doctors and scientists who profit directly from these drugs.
Clearly, there are far better alternatives to taking these expensive and dangerous medications that in no way shape or form address the underlying cause of the problem that is typically related to insulin elevation.
The first is to normalize your insulin levels by eliminating sugar and grains from your diet. At the same time, you’ll want to take a high-quality fish or cod liver oil that is chock full of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids.