Thyroid-hormone mimic lowers LDL
By Ben Harder
From Boston, at a meeting of the Endocrine Society
A compound in a new class of potential anti-cholesterol drugs has passed an early test in people, researchers report.
The drug would mimic thyroid hormone, which reduces blood concentrations of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or bad cholesterol. But the hormone also raises the risk of heart arrhythmia, osteoporosis, and muscle damage, so researchers have attempted to create a stand-in that would avoid the side effects.
John D. Baxter of the University of California, San Francisco and his colleagues at the firm Karo Bio in Huddinge, Sweden, recently tested, in more than a dozen people the performance of a compound labeled KB2115.