“the Efficacy of Intensive Dietary Therapy Alone or Combined with Lovastatin in Outpatients with Hypercholesterolemia” Journal Appraisal
Mar. 12, 2013
I. Introduction
The journal article that will be reviewed in this paper is “The Efficacy of Intensive Dietary Therapy Alone or Combined with Lovastatin in Outpatients with Hypercholesterolemia”. This article tackles the difference in terms of efficacy between the intensive diet therapy alone compared to the diet therapy with the presence of Lovastatin. Lovastatin is a lipid-lowering agent that was studied extensively and widely prescribed in USA. There are two treatments conducted in the study, one is the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet and the other is low-fat, low-cholesterol diet but with the presence of Lovastatin. For the control intervention of the study a high-fat, high- cholesterol diet and high-fat, high- cholesterol diet with the presence of placebo. Placebo is an identical appearance to lovastatin; this was used to control the unbeneficial effect of the experiment but would be cause by the active agent in the food.
The main question of this study is; between an intensive dietary therapy alone and dietary therapy with the presence of Lovastatin, which is more effective and efficient to the outpatients with hypercholesterolemia. Moreover, the hypothesis of the study is the NCEP Step 2 diet or the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet can reduce the mean levels of total and LDL cholesterol up to greater than 5 percentages. Meanwhile, their hypothesis on the basis of metabolic-ward studies are in the NCEP Step 2 diet or the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet will have an average reduction of about 50 mg per deciliter. The scientific relevance of this study is not that significant because previous researches have resulted on the same outcome that the effect of diet and lovastatin are independent to each other. However, the practical relevance of the study showed that during low fat diets, with or without the presence of Lovastatin, the patient could experience a reduction in in its average weight compared to the diet with containing high-fats.
I. Introduction
The journal article that will be reviewed in this paper is “The Efficacy of Intensive Dietary Therapy Alone or Combined with Lovastatin in Outpatients with Hypercholesterolemia”. This article tackles the difference in terms of efficacy between the intensive diet therapy alone compared to the diet therapy with the presence of Lovastatin. Lovastatin is a lipid-lowering agent that was studied extensively and widely prescribed in USA. There are two treatments conducted in the study, one is the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet and the other is low-fat, low-cholesterol diet but with the presence of Lovastatin. For the control intervention of the study a high-fat, high- cholesterol diet and high-fat, high- cholesterol diet with the presence of placebo. Placebo is an identical appearance to lovastatin; this was used to control the unbeneficial effect of the experiment but would be cause by the active agent in the food.
The main question of this study is; between an intensive dietary therapy alone and dietary therapy with the presence of Lovastatin, which is more effective and efficient to the outpatients with hypercholesterolemia. Moreover, the hypothesis of the study is the NCEP Step 2 diet or the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet can reduce the mean levels of total and LDL cholesterol up to greater than 5 percentages. Meanwhile, their hypothesis on the basis of metabolic-ward studies are in the NCEP Step 2 diet or the low-fat, low-cholesterol diet will have an average reduction of about 50 mg per deciliter. The scientific relevance of this study is not that significant because previous researches have resulted on the same outcome that the effect of diet and lovastatin are independent to each other. However, the practical relevance of the study showed that during low fat diets, with or without the presence of Lovastatin, the patient could experience a reduction in in its average weight compared to the diet with containing high-fats.