- All people need some cholesterol, but having too high cholesterol levels can be dangerous, particularly to areas of cardiovascular health.
- Research is ongoing to find new ways to help people keep cholesterol within a healthy range.
- Data from a recent study on animals found a vaccine that may be effective at lowering cholesterol.
- Future research is required before this data can be applied in clinical practice with humans.
Cholesterol levels outside a healthy range can be dangerous for heart health, but what options exist for lowering cholesterol?
Most often, people can manage cholesterol levels by changing components of their lifestyle or taking certain medications. However, the options for assistance with cholesterol management may be expanding.
A study published in
The study looked at mouse and nonhuman primate models, and found that a bivalent vaccine effectively lowered cholesterol levels.
The results point to promising research and the potential development of another way to help people keep cholesterol in a healthy range.
Study author Dr. Bryce Chackerian, Regent’s professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, explained the reasoning behind the research to Medical News Today.
“The common medications to treat elevated cholesterol are statins,” he told us. “However, statins don’t work for everyone, and some patients on statins experience side effects.”
“Recently, a new class of medication, called PCSK9 inhibitors, have been approved to lower cholesterol. PCSK9 inhibitors are very effective at lowering cholesterol, but unfortunately they are also very expensive, which has limited their use. We were interested in developing a lower-cost vaccine-based approach for inhibiting PCSK9. The idea behind this approach is that the vaccine induces antibodies against PCSK9, which then lower cholesterol levels.”
– Dr. Bryce…
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