Cholesterol

Pfizer Inc. said it had cut off all clinical trials and development for a cholesterol drug because of an unexpected number of deaths and cardiovascular problems in patients who used it. The drug maker said an independent board monitoring a study for torcetrapib, a drug that raises good cholesterol, recommended that the work end. Pfizer is asking clinical investigators conducting trials to warn patients to stop taking the drug.

Babies who drink mother's milk have lower cholesterol levels than infants fed formulas resembling cow's milk, researchers reported. University of Illinois researchers said they found that infants' cholesterol levels appear to depend on the protein composition of the milk they drink. Cow's milk contains about three times as much protein as human milk, and the proportion of two major types of protein--caesin and whey--also varies, researchers said.

Older men with low cholesterol are three times as likely to show signs of depression than those with higher cholesterol, a study has found. If the connection is confirmed, researchers said, cholesterol-lowering measures may be recommended only for people at high risk of heart disease.

Six million healthy Americans with ordinary cholesterol levels might benefit from taking cholesterol-lowering drugs, researchers said. Healthy men and women taking lovastatin, sold as Mevacor, reduced their risk of serious heart trouble 37%, according to a five-year study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. Currently, national guidelines recommend cholesterol-lowering drugs only for people with high cholesterol.

Drugs that lower cholesterol to help prevent heart attacks also may thwart the most common type of stroke, researchers said. Drugs such as Zocor and Pravachol reduced the risk of stroke by an estimated 27%, an analysis of 12 studies involving 19,518 patients with high cholesterol found. Researchers say the drugs, known as reductase inhibitors, may avert strokes by cleaning arteries, preventing their deterioration or forestalling heart attacks.

Widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs do not appear to raise the risk of suicide and might even reduce depression, according to researchers trying to clarify conflicting earlier studies. Some previous studies appeared to connect older cholesterol-lowering drugs to an increased risk of unintentional injury, aggression and suicide. Other recent research suggested no such link.

An experimental hormone that has shown promise in boosting the immune system of patients with AIDS and blood diseases also has an unexpected ability to lower cholesterol in the bloodstream, according to UCLA Medical Center researchers. The finding, being reported in Thursday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., may stimulate research to develop new cholesterol-lowering drugs, according to Dr. Stephen D.

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday authorized the sale of a cholesterol-lowering drug that could help millions of people reduce their risk of heart attacks and strokes. The prescription drug, taken as a tablet once or twice a day, is called lovastatin and will be available in two or three weeks under the brand name Mevacor. It will be marketed by Merck Sharp & Dohme of West Point, Pa. Dr. Michael Brown and Dr.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the cholesterol-lowering drug called Crestor after long debate about the risk of side effects. Made by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Crestor, a statin, comes with a warning about taking higher-than-recommended doses, which have contributed to rare cases of a potentially fatal, muscle-destroying condition called rhabdomyolysis.