What does fibrates do to the body?
Modern world has led to a sedentary lifestyle and bad eating habits. In the long run, such behaviour can easily lead to many metabolic diseases such as hyperlipidaemia. Most cases involving metabolic diseases may not make a person find doctors until symptoms are exhibited. This is why regular health screening is important to make sure a person’s health level is always optimum and to prevent certain diseases by making lifestyle changes. When a person is diagnosed with metabolic diseases such as hyperlipidaemia, they are prescribed with certain drugs that may have to be taken for their lifetime. In this article, we will be learning about one of the drugs used to treat hyperlipidaemia known as fibrates and what it does to the body.
Fibrates are medicine prescribed to help treat conditions of high levels of triglyceride (a type of fat) such as in hyperlipidaemia. This drug belongs to a class of drugs that lower cholesterol levels in blood. You may have heard statin is prescribed to treat high cholesterol levels in blood but the differences between statin and fibrates lies in the effect they have on different fat in blood. Although statin and fibrate do reduce the level of LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol), only fibrates have the ability to have effect on triglyceride and HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) levels in blood. This makes fibrates the best drug to be used for hyperlipidaemia.
Why are fibrates suitable for hyperlipidaemia? Hyperlipidaemia is a condition of elevated concentration of lipids or fats in the blood. This includes cholesterol and triglycerides. As mentioned previously, fibrates are able to work on all fats in the blood. This is in contrast with other drugs such as statin which is less effective on reducing triglyceride levels and does not improve HDL cholesterol. It is important to treat hyperlipidaemia as LDL cholesterol along with triglycerides can accumulate inside the blood vessels’ wall. This can lead to formation of blood clots which would end up with heart attack and stroke.
Thus, what do fibrates do to the body? This drug works in a few ways to elicit the effect of lowering bad fats in the blood so that the body is able to have an almost to normal level of lipid profile. It works by reducing the ability of the liver to produce triglycerides and speed up the natural processes in the body to remove cholesterol. It also works to increase HDL by increasing its production through liver processes.
In essence, fibrates are one of the drugs used to treat hyperlipidaemia. If you are diagnosed with hyperlipidaemia, your healthcare provider might prescribe other drugs apart from fibrates. It is worth noting that different drugs prescribed are based on the level of fats in the blood. Drugs prescribed for a person with hyperlipidaemia may be different to another person. This is because different people may have different lipid profiles and medical conditions to be taken care of. For example, fibrates may be suitable for most patients with very high triglycerides levels but it is usually avoided in those with impaired kidney function or severe liver issues.
Hyperlipidaemia is a preventable disease. This can be done by practising healthy eating habits of eating a low-salt diet that is packed with nutrients from fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Another dietary change that should be done is by eating a heart-healthy diet that is low in cholesterol, saturated fat and trans-fat. Last but not least, maintaining healthy weight and being physically active can help manage the blood lipid profile better. In general, all of these steps not only help to improve blood lipid profile but also reduce the chances of many other metabolic diseases such as diabetes.
