Earlier this week I heard a brief radio report that a study published in the 11/15/2009 New England Journal of Medicine found a prescription form of Niacin (vitamin B3) had outperformed a popular cholesterol prescription. I didn’t get much more than that from the report, so I looked into it. Here’s what I found:
The 14-month, 363-subject study sought to determine whether a patient on statins in need of additional therapy would benefit more from further driving LDL (aka bad cholesterol) down or raising HDL (aka good cholesterol). The researchers compared Zetia (ezetemibe) to Niaspan, a prescription controlled-release niacin. Niacin, as you may already know has demonstrated the ability to increase HDL (“good”) cholesterol and reduce LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
The study was abruptly stopped (4 months sooner then planned) because the researchers noticed such a significant difference between the groups. The reason – Niaspan actually caused a significant reduction in the amount of plaque in the carotid (neck) artery which helps transport blood to the brain. Niaspan shrank the carotid artery plaque by 2% while Zetia had NO effect, despite reducing cholesterol levels. There were 2 heart attacks in the 160 individuals given Niaspan and 9 in the Zetia group. It would appear the initial radio report was correct, Niacin had outperformed Zetia.
While one editor noted the study was too brief and too small to draw definitive conclusions, I’m going to look on this study as yet another in an increasing number of studies validating natural products. While I acknowledge all participants were using statin medications, my point is in this case (as is in the case of many others) we find that all other variables held constant, a natural option achieved better results with fewer side effects at a much lower cost.
Basically, I do believe prescription drugs have their place in modern healthcare, but why not try a research validated natural option first?
