you have to take at least one gram of niacin to see any response, and it may be only minimal. this has to also be the prescription brand which is slow release so that the sides are tolerable. even with this dose aspirin is reccomended to decrese the flushing that you get. like i said, zetia may be an option. i'm not saying that you can't take a statin, niacin, fibrate or other drug while your on. i'm only saying that you run the risk of increased liver function and/or the unwanted sides of any of the meds you are using. you should check routine lft's to follow this closely.
as far as why our lipids are screwed up is simply due to increased amounts of testosterone, plain and simple. the more you have, the worse the panel. that's why women for the most part have better lipid profiles than men, especially in regards to the HDL particle.
on the cutting edge of lipidology is that a family in Italy has been found to live long lives and never had a history of cardiovascular disease. these folks have a special type of HDL (there are more than one when doing lipid spectroscopy-some better than others) anyways the folks at pfizer (i think) are isolating this particle, and we may be able to benfit from it. the thought would be routine infusions of this stuff, which would scavenge all the plaques off of the lumen of the arteries, thus eliminating cvd risk. cool ain't it. anyways this is a way off.
