What Are Bile Acid Sequestrants?
Lowering your cholesterol can be tricky. Scientists have found that in order to win this battle, sometimes you must out-trick the trickster. Bile acid sequestrants do just that. While they may not be as effective as using other methods, using them in combination with other medications has proven to reduce cholesterol levels by 50%.
Bile is a very important factor in ridding the body of cholesterol. You see, cholesterol is a major component of bile, but the bile gets absorbed back into the bloodstream once it is in the small intestine. Since the body is so very close to eliminating this cholesterol from the body the only thing that had to be done is stop the intestine from absorbing the cholesterol back into the bloodstream. This is where the bile acid sequestrant comes into play.
The body needs cholesterol to make bile, and your body is constantly hard at work producing bile daily. The bile acid sequestrant is active in the small intestine and binds to the bile, preventing the cholesterol from making another trip back to the liver. The medication and bile form into an insoluble complex and is excreted in the feces. This means that the next time your body produces bile; it will be doing so with new cholesterol. Every time you loose more bile in your feces you are lowering cholesterol.
Low doses are said to lower cholesterol by 10-15%, where as higher doses can reduce up to 25% of cholesterol. While this may not seem like a lot to most, people who suffer from high cholesterol see these numbers and are instantly intrigued. When this is combined with other medications like statins you will increase the percentage of cholesterol lost by up to 30%. However, you may also be increasing your risk of developing rhabdomyolysis, the breaking down of skeletal muscle tissue. This is a serious side effect and for this very reason, prolonged use of the bile acid sequestrants with statins are not recommended by most doctors, even though the cholesterol levels are dramatically reduced, it is not a healthy alternative.
This is a prime example of how modern medicine is working with the body to alter already present functions and gain healthy results. When this medication is used by itself there are no serious side effects to worry about and this is something we can all be grateful for. While it may not reduce your cholesterol levels significantly, for those that need it, this medication is definitely what they have been waiting for.
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