Study: Niacin, statins better than Zetia

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- The vitamin niacin combined with statins is more effective in unclogging arteries than Merck & Co.'s highly profitable Zetia, a U.S. study says.

That study is the third to question the effectiveness of Zetia and its sister drug Vytorin, which have been shown to reduce cholesterol but not to prevent heart attacks or strokes, The New York Times reported Monday.

The study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed about 200 patients who were already taking statins, such as Lipitor. Some of those patients were given Niaspan, a modified form of niacin, and the rest were given Zetia.

After 14 months, the patients who took Niaspan had less plaque in their arteries and higher levels of high-density lipoprotein or HDL, known as "good" cholesterol, than did the patients who took Zetia, said the study's author, Dr. Allen Taylor of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Merck dismissed the research as limited.

"I don't think a clinician or a doctor or a patient should use this as the basis for any decision-making whatsoever," Richard Pasternak, vice president of Merck research laboratories, told The Washington Post in a story reported Monday.