Australians spend more than $1 billion a year on cholesterol tablets to unclog their arteries and Cardiologists blame poor diet and lifestyle for the skyrocketing cholesterol levels. More than 19 million prescriptions are written each year for the three top selling cholesterol fighting medicines, making them the most prescribed pills in the country.

Lipitor, (11 million scripts) the nations biggest selling prescription medicine costs taxpayers on the drug subsidy scheme $621 million, the second most prescribed Simvastatin (5.1 million scripts) costing $170.5 million and a further (3 million scripts) for the third biggest selling Rosuvastatin.
The government is paying pharmacists $58.99 for Simvastatin, but chemists buy the drug for $18.00.

Surprisingly, there are ways of cutting cholesterol without using these drugs, such as cutting saturated fat such as skin and fat on meat, cream and other full fat dairy products, less carbohydrates, increasing fruit and vegetable intake, avoiding fast foods, moderate alcohol, reduce stress and increasing “physical” exercise.

Side effects of these drugs are liver injury and to a lesser extent muscle pain.