About 38 percent of people in the United States have high cholesterol, doubling their risk of heart disease. Considering that heart disease is the leading cause of death in America, that number can cause real problems for you or your loved ones.
A number of lifestyle factors contribute to high cholesterol levels, including exercise, diet, and the amount you smoke or drink alcohol—but there are also all sorts of factors you can’t control, like genetics and age.
Since they were first offered in the late 1980s, a class of drugs called statins have been a key contributor to dealing with cholesterol levels. The rise in statin prescriptions has been steadily increasing in the past twenty years, and today they are one of the most prescribed drugs in the entire world. Approximately 35 million Americans are using statins, and…