Plaque regression wiht Niacin versus Placebo

Patients has been asking me if taking medications for dyslipidemia like statins will relieve the stenosis in the coronary arteries. People are always looking for a quick fix. Atherosclerosis is a process that takes years to accumulate and is affected by physiologic and environmental factors. Once you are diagnosed with atherosclerotic heart disease, cardiovascular disease like heart attack or brain attack, the process of atherosclerosis has been going on for a long time. It has only recently been shown that statins can halt or even regression of atherosclerosis. But taking medications for a month will not regress all the atherosclerosis you accumulated for so many years eating those fatty food and not lack of exercise and poor health habits.

There is a new study ARBITER-HALTS 6 thats about to come out with its results on the use of niacin in the regression of plaques (caused by atherosclerosis) compared to placebo by measuring the intima media thickness of the carotid. This will add to our current medical strategy in treating dyslipidemia and target regression of aterosclerotic plaque. This may have a big impact on Filipinos since it has been shown in studies that Filipino patients who had cardiovascular disease like myocardial infarction (heart attack) had normal or low LDL cholesterol, tryglycerides. However, these patients also had low HDL. The addition of niacin in the treatment of Filipino patients with cardiovascular disease could have a very big impact on morbidity and mortality. For more information visit Hearwire.