New Cholesterol Drug Lowers Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke
It remains to be seen whether the treatment, which was effective in a large clinical trial, will live up to its promise
By Heidi Ledford, Nature magazine on March 17, 2017
An LDL, or "bad" cholesterol molecule (round) binds to an LDL receptor protein (pink) in this illustration. Credit: Juan Gaertner Getty Images
For years, medical researchers have hoped that a burgeoning class of cholesterol drugs targeting a protein called PCSK9 could be the next generation of blockbuster treatments. Now, a large clinical trial has demonstrated that this approach can lower the risk of heart disease. But it’s still unclear whether these drugs—which attempt to mimic a beneficial genetic mutation—will be the breakthrough that scientists and pharmaceutical companies had imagined.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-cholesterol-drug-lowers-risk-of-heart-attack-and-stroke/
