Rosuvastatin

Rosuvastatin is a tablet that helps lower cholesterol in your blood and boosts your long-term heart health. It's part of a group of medicines called statins, which work by reducing the cholesterol your liver makes and calming inflammation in your artery walls.

Cholesterol is a type of lipid, a term used for molecules that your body naturally makes. Lipids are waxy, fatty substances that are important for many vital processes and help provide you with energy. Triglycerides are another type of lipid that, like cholesterol, can lead to serious health issues if their levels are too high. Essentially, cholesterol and triglycerides are known as 'blood fats', and having unhealthy levels of either can lead to serious health problems, such as heart attacks and strokes.

To help lipids travel through your bloodstream, they join with a protein to create lipoproteins. The three main types of cholesterol are high-density lipoproteins (HDL, or ‘good’ cholesterol), low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or ‘bad’ cholesterol), and very-low-density lipoproteins (VLDL, another ‘bad’ type). Statins help by reducing the levels of harmful cholesterols that can be damaging to your health.

Rosuvastatin helps reduce your LDL levels by slowing down the amount of cholesterol your liver makes. It also enhances your liver's ability to remove the LDL already present in your blood.

Taking Rosuvastatin every day, combined with a healthy diet and regular exercise, can help lower inflammation in your artery walls. This allows blood to flow more easily through your arteries, reducing the risk of blockages that might harm your vital organs.

Rosuvastatin comes in six different doses: 5mg, 10mg, 15mg, 20mg, 30mg, and 40mg.

For adults with high cholesterol, the usual starting dose is either a 5mg or 10mg tablet taken once daily. This is typically the case even if you've previously taken higher doses of statins.

A clinician can help determine the best dose for you. If your cholesterol levels aren't improving with the 5mg or 10mg tablets, you may need to increase to the 20mg dose, or possibly the 40mg dose later on.

Your current dose will typically be increased gradually by moving up to the next tablet strength, instead of jumping straight from a lower dose to a higher one. The highest dose available is 40mg. Your GP can perform blood tests to check if your cholesterol levels are decreasing.