Hey all, Eric Christensen here, pharmacist. Welcome back to the real-life pharmacology podcast.

On this episode, I am going to cover the drug isetamide, which is primarily used for cholesterol

lowering effects. The brand name of this medication is Zedia. It is dosed 10 milligrams once a day and there really isn't much variation on the dosing there

in the majority of patients.

It's pretty standard.

It's a starting dose as well as the treatment or therapeutic dose.

Now the mechanism of action of this drug, how it ultimately lowers cholesterol,

is the simplified version is it inhibits the intestinal absorption of cholesterol. So if you block it

from getting into the bloodstream, ultimately that's going to lower total cholesterol throughout

the body and the blood, obviously.

Now, the exact mechanism, it blocks the Neiman Pick C1, like one sterile transporter.

Okay, so that's a mouthful to remember.

But ultimately, this transporter allows cholesterol or facilitates the movement

of cholesterol across the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream.

So by blocking that transporter, we lower cholesterol.

So the primary use, talking about lowering cholesterol, getting into that a little bit further,

we're targeting LDL cholesterol is typically what we're going to do with this medication.

Now, the major, major first-line medication that everyone uses in lowering cholesterol or L-DL,

or targeting that LDL-Colesterol, reducing the risk of heart attack, stroke, ASCVD, and things like that,

that's going to be statins. That's the first-line go-to medication.

Now, if you've got patients that

do not tolerate statins, do not get enough efficacy from statins, here's where Zetamide may be added in.

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