Statins
Are Fish Oil supplements safe?!
As a nutrition support pharmacist, patients are asking whether fish oil supplements are safe. Some fish contain contaminants like mercury, PCBs, or dioxins. But most fish oil supplements are mercury-free since mercury accumulates in the meat more than the oils. And a large amount of other toxins are removed during manufacturing. But to be safe, direct patients to pro…
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Statins
Evaluate the need for NON-statins
As a hospital pharmacist, you will continue to see LESS use of non-statins (niacin, etc) for dyslipidemia due to limited evidence of CV benefit. Consider discontinuing non-statins when patients are admitted if there's no good reason for the patient to be on them. Use these tips to evaluate the need for non-statins... Save non-stati…
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Statins
How to manage HYPERtriglyceridemia
Questions will come up about how to manage high triglycerides, due to recent guidance from the American College of Cardiology . We know that a fasting triglyceride level of 150 mg/dL or higher is a marker for cardiovascular (CV) disease. But using medications specifically to lower triglycerides isn’t proven to reduce CV events or to prevent pancreatitis, even in pati…
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Statins
How to deal with statin interaction?
Statin INRERACTION alerts continue to cause confusion. We know to watch for the more problematic statins: simvastatin, lovastatin, or atorvastatin since they're metabolized by CYP3A4 the most. But be familiar with some of the less cut-and-dried interactions... Are all azole antifungals a big problem? No. Fl…
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