Medicine That Helps Clean Bad Cholesterol From Your Blood
PCSK9 Inhibition: Insights From Clinical Trials and Future Prospects
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Your body has a cleanup crew for bad cholesterol, but a protein called PCSK9 tells the crew to stop working. These medicines block PCSK9, so the cleanup crew keeps removing bad cholesterol from your blood.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 51 / 5
Evidence Score
Based on clinical experience or non-systematic literature reviews. The lowest level of evidence as they are most susceptible to bias and personal perspective.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Your body has a cleanup crew for bad cholesterol, but a protein called PCSK9 tells the crew to stop working. These medicines block PCSK9, so the cleanup crew keeps removing bad cholesterol from your blood.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 51 / 5
Evidence Score
Based on clinical experience or non-systematic literature reviews. The lowest level of evidence as they are most susceptible to bias and personal perspective.
Publication
Authors
Katzmann JL, Gouni-Berthold I, Laufs U
Related Content
Claims (6)
Blocking a protein called PCSK9 with certain drugs helps your body remove bad cholesterol from your blood more effectively.
For people with serious heart disease who are already taking cholesterol-lowering pills, adding one of two special drugs (evolocumab or alirocumab) can lower their chances of having a major heart problem—like a heart attack—by about 15% over a few years.
Taking a cholesterol drug called evolocumab to get really low LDL levels doesn’t seem to cause serious side effects like memory problems, diabetes, cataracts, or brain bleeds over 3 years, according to a major study.
If you take certain cholesterol-lowering shots like evolocumab or alirocumab every few weeks, they can cut your 'bad' cholesterol by about 60%, even if you're already on cholesterol pills, have a genetic form of high cholesterol, or can't handle statins.
People born with a certain gene change that breaks the PCSK9 gene tend to have much lower 'bad' cholesterol their whole lives and are far less likely to get heart disease — so scientists think blocking this gene with medicine might help protect others' hearts too.