Saturdays News - Crestor vs. Lipitor: Cholesterol Busters

Crestor vs. Lipitor: Cholesterol BustersDifference between Crestor and Lipitor

  

     Crestor and Lipitor are two medications that have shown tremendous promise in the treatment of excessive cholesterol, and they both belong to the same category of medications. While both essentially perform the same functions and produce similar side effects, they each have their own relative strengths and weaknesses. Have a read through this comparison article and find out what they are.

Function

Crestor and Lipitor both belong to the category of drugs known as statins. Such medications work by blocking the enzyme that controls the rate at which cholesterol is produced, HMG-CoA reductase.  Crestor and Lipitor therefore cause the liver to produce less cholesterol than it normally would. The key difference is that Crestor can generally be taken without any regard to dietary restrictions, while Lipitor has been shown to interact unfavorably with grapefruit juice. Some studies have suggested that Crestor may be more effective than Lipitor in cholesterol reduction, but the results remain inconclusive at the time of this writing.  Read the full article Crestor vs. Lipitor: Cholesterol Busters

Crestor Commercial

Lipitor Commercial





Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium)
     A pharmacist explains how Lipitor works, why doctors prescribe this cholesterol medication, and common side effects of the drug.

Questions About Lipitor?
 Atorvastatin, sold by Pfizer under the trade name Lipitor, is a member of the drug class known as statins, used for lowering blood cholesterol. It also stabilizes plaque and prevents strokes through anti-inflammatory and other mechanisms. Like all statins, atorvastatin works by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase, an enzyme found in liver tissue that plays a key role in production of cholesterol in the body.

Atorvastatin was first synthesized in 1985 by Bruce Roth while working at Parke-Davis Warner-Lambert Company (now Pfizer). With 2008 sales of US$12.4 billion, Lipitor was the top-selling branded pharmaceutical in the world. US patent protection is scheduled to expire in June 2011. However, Pfizer made an agreement with Ranbaxy Laboratories to delay the generic launch in the US until November 2011.

Crestor for Normal Cholesterol?
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel's recommendation that some adults with no prior heart problems should take the cholesterol-busting statin Crestor appears to have pitted cardiologists against many primary care physicians over the best use of the popular drug.

At stake in the debate is the health of millions of Americans who, if the recommendation is followed by the FDA, could soon find themselves urged by their doctors to take the drug.

"If the FDA accepts this recommendation, it will expand the number of Americans eligible for statin therapy by millions," said Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.

See the full article FDA Panel Recommendation on Crestor Spurs Debate.
As well see Crestor for Normal Cholesterol?


Crestor The Jupiter Study
 JUPITER: Randomized Clinical Trial, double blinded, placebo controlled. 1315 sties in 26 countries. To see if cardiovascular naïve people with high hsCRP will have less CV events on Crestor.