Increasing the HDL or the good cholesterol in the blood should be one of your top priorities I your battle to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk involved. HDL regulates cholesterol in the blood and prevents the accumulation of the LDL cholesterol in the arteries, which can lead to atherosclerossis.

Although it is known that some stain drugs, exercise and dietary changes can boost HDL, A non-statin drug combination was recently tested for increasing the HDL blood cholesterol level to reduce the total blood cholesterol.

The non-statin drug combo includes gemifibrozil, niacin, and cholestyramine. The three are aimed at increasing HDL cholesterol when taken in additionto, not in place of, exercise, and lifestyle/dietary changes to reduce overall cholesterol.

Niacin for example raises your HDL cholesterol level by 7 mg/dL and lowers your LDL and triglyceride levels significantly thus reducing the risk for coronary event by 25%. Unfortunately Niacin like many other drugs has some side effects which include gas, heat, itching, or tingling, muscle aches and liver related problems.

The triple-drug therapy including niacin, gemfibrozil, and cholestyramine had increased HDL cholesterol levels by 36%, lowered the LDL cholesterol, also known as the bad cholesterol by 26% and reduced the triglyceride level by 50% when combined with healthy lifestyle and dietary changes over a period of 30 months according to the Armed Forces Regression Study, an experiment performed upon 143 military men to check how lowering HDL levels can reduce the risk of heart disease.

Although each drug in the combo has its won line of side effects, the future seems to promise the manufacturing of a drug, which contains all three to effectively raise HDL higher then 40 mg/dl and I’m sure it’s going to be a success if properly combined with a healthy lifestyle and low cholesterol diet.