European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 17, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Cholesterol lowering drug hailed As tremendous Advance Byjah Debrody now York times new Type of cholesterol lowering drug promises to revolutionize treatment of High Levels of blood cholesterol. Cholesterol is a major cause o atherosclerotic heart disease the artery hardening condition Hal kills a i lion americans each year. Ironically the very effectiveness and simplicity of the drug Kwas Lalin is raising difficult new questions about proper medical practice and patients behaviour. Some physicians ear Hal patients will rely on the drug instead of a Low Tat diet which has Many health advantages beyond preventing heart disease although heart disease specialists around the country Are appropriately cautious about As Yel unseen drawbacks they can scarcely contain their excitement about the new drug which la expected to be approved Lor marketing later this year. In recent interviews they described Lova statin As far More effective and much easier and snore pleasant la take than any cholesterol lowering drug now available. It has the added advantage of working through lha body s natural mechanism Lor controlling cholesterol Levels in the blood a mechanism elucidated in the 1970s by he Nobel prize winning research of or. Joseph l. Goldstein and or Michael a Brown of the University of Texas health science Center in Dallas ordinarily reserved physicians and researchers used words like breakthrough tremendous Advance and great leap toward to describe the Promise of Tov Slatin which disrupts the manufacture of cholesterol in the liver forcing the liver to remove the cholesterol in needs from the blood. Seventy percent of the body s cholesterol production lakes place in the liver. Loy Slatin and drugs like it will at last give physicians a Way to bring into treatment the Mimon Sof americans with High  said or. Claude Lenfant director of the a Akmal heart lung and blood Institute. Because the drug is easy to Lake relatively inexpensive and highly effective at lowering cholesterol he arid others believe doctors will be inclined to prescribe it for Many of the20 million american adults now recognized As having cholesterol Levels that place them at High risk for developing coronary heart disease experts expect that patients treated with Lova statin will number Woll into Tho millions As opposed to Tho thousands being treated with drugs now in use. Lov Stalin will shape physicians behaviour said or. Basil Fri find a specialist on atherosclerosis at the National Institute. Coining at a Limo when physicians Are being urged to be More aggressive about cholesterol it will allow them to do what they re being told to do but hitherto could t do easily he said recent National surveys show that awareness and concern about cholesterol among physicians and the Public is at an All time High. Lov Slatin s introduction also coincides with the development of Finger prick tests for cholesterol Hal should make h easy and inexpensive to measure. Cholesterol Levels in most americans. But some experts fear that the availability of drugs like Lova statin will prompt Many people to abandon dietary change As the first line of at Lack in preventing heart disease. According to a recent report in the journal of the american medical association average cholesterol Levels in this country have dropped significantly in the last two decades primarily because people Are eating lass saturated fat and cholesterol than in the past in addition to heart disease a diet High in fat has been linked to cancer obesity autoimmune disorders strokes and other diseases. Dietary measures should come first and Only if they do not lower cholesterol enough should any drug be used said or. Robert Levy a vice president for health sciences at Columbia presbyterian medical Center and a former director of the National Institute. For one thing he said a cholesterol lowering diet can enhance the effectiveness of the drug. For another there Are potential hazards. This is a drug that has to be taken for life Levy said. It costs Money and no drug la free of Side effects. Some risks might not show up until thousands of people have been taking it for Many  two possible hazards of Lov Stalin Are already being carefully examined an increase in fiver enzymes that occurs in 1 percent of users and could mean the liver is being overworked and change in the Eye Lens that could suggest an increased risk of cataracts. An advisory Board to the food and drug administration recommended marketing approval Tor Lova statin which has been under study in patients for about four years. The drug a product of Merck Sharp & dohme could be available by next Tali. 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Consumers have been bombarded with contradictory facts so they think Why not rebel and rely on my own judgment " she said. Nancy Sills a 33-year-old lawyer said she did not exercise As much As she used to or worry so about what she eats. I can t bring myself to diet anymore she said. It s too painful. I Don t want to nol cat bagels for  Sills typifies a pattern in data collected by the no group which studied eating habits in 2,000 households. In the last two years Balzer said the percentage of people on diets fell to 19 percent from 27 percent. Last year for the first Lime in Tive years snacking in the Home increased. Popular items included ice Cream Candy chips and Popcorn. Dieters Are defining lha concept More liberally. Mica information services. A Market research tuesday March 17, 1987 company that also follows eating habits in 2,000 households found that dieters in 1984 ate 46 percent More chocolate bars. 59 percent More prel Zuls and twice As Many croissants As in the Early 1980s. Maggie Kneip. A 31 year old former dancer who works in Public relations still gels up before Daybreak to swim. But she has been less obsessed Aboul dieting since she got married last year. Before my refrigerator was intentionally  she said when you live with someone you can t be so neurotic about  she eats swells occasionally Al night now. At the end of the Day it s a Reward to me i have to let Mysell have something " Faith Popcorn whose brain Reserve inc. In new York studies social trends said women s average weights Are rising and the acceptance of Tho Fuller figure can be seen Al the movies. The Lomale stars of two recent movies Blue velvet and Peggy sue got  Are both curvy very sexy Popcorn said she called it a turn away from  stemming partly from the interest in child bearing among baby Boomers. With aids and the association of emaciation with wasting diseases the whole Idoa of being thin is not in anymore she said Brown Loo. Predicted that largeness bigness is going to come Back in fashion the stars and stripes Page 17