The idea that cholesterol lowering drugs could reduce dengue fever recently confronted the health terrain. Now, a team from the American College of Cardiology has disclosed an antibody injection that was apparently effective in lowering bad cholesterol levels in the body, thereby adding to the benefits of statin therapies.
As part of the trial, 183 patients with high levels of LDL or bad cholesterol in their blood were monitored. An antibody called SAR236553/REGN727 seemed to be associated with the enzyme PCSK9. The latter is generally linked to the impairment of LDL receptors. The team believed that SAR236553/REGN727 supposedly gets linked to PCSK9 and impedes its effects on the bad cholesterol receptors. Thus, more LDL receptors are saved in the process, which means more amounts of LDL reaches the liver to be processed out of the body.
“Our LDL cholesterol treatment goals were less than 100 or 70 mg/dL. All of the participants receiving one of our doses met those goals. Statins are good medicines and getting a 70 percent reduction on top of them is remarkable,†commented James McKenney, PharmD, chief executive officer of National Clinical Research, and the study’s lead investigator.
Affirming the aforesaid mechanism, the results showed that the LDL levels in the bloodstreams of people receiving the injection went down. Moreover, with increasing doses of the same, the effect increased consistently.
This monoclonal antibody SAR236553/REGN727 first surfaced out 2 years back, but the results of this trial are still in the first Phase II stage. Further studies are required to gauge the effectiveness and safety of using this antibody for lowering cholesterol in humans.
The report was presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 61st Annual Scientific Session.