Dr. Ted Feldman, Medical Director of Prevention and Community Health with Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, says statin drugs are the ones that have been available since 1985 for high cholesterol treatment.

“They block the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver cells where most cholesterol is made, telling the liver cell ‘I need more cholesterol’, so it increases the number of receptors that take LDL from the blood. So, the liver cell has more cholesterol to make all the steroid hormones, sex hormones and cell membranes, and by regulating the receptors and taking more bad cholesterol out of the blood, there’s less bad cholesterol to be put into plaque,” he explains.