Newzity

No, it is not. According to a new study Vytorin is no better than other drugs for preventing heart disease.

Vytorin was touted as the miracle drug for combating heart diseases, and earlier this year its manufacturers launched a $200 million dollar ad campaign. It must have been effective, since there are about 20 million Americans taking this cholesterol reducing medicine. And not just the patients, doctors too bought the hype. Vytorin was supposed to reduce three main contributors of heart diseases: bad LDL cholesterol, C-reactive protein, and neck artery plaque. Though Vytorin is more effective in reducing the first two, it failed to show its effect on the third. Unfortunately, the third one directly contributes to cardiac problems. As if Vytorin does everything except really improving the health of the patient. In the light of the new results, American College of Cardiology (ACC) is recommending Vytorin should be used as a last resort.

Congress is looking into the possibility that Vytorin was unfairly prescribed and people spent a lot of money for nothing. And there is the question of corporate misconduct: one Schering-Plough sold about a million of shares of the company before the news became public.

But for rest of us, the problems do not end with Vytorin. For a long time, we led to believe that lowering bad cholesterol automatically means better cardiac health. The new result proves otherwise. That leaves us with the question: how do we prevent heart disease?