The main treatment for lowering high blood cholesterol levels is lifestyle changes. This may include:

• Healthy diet: It is important to limit your intake of foods that increase cholesterol levels. For example, the Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) diet recommended by the National Cholesterol Education Program of the National Institutes of Health provides a low-saturated-fat, low-cholesterol eating plan.
• Weight management: Losing weight if you are overweight or obese can help lower LDL.
• Physical activity: Regular physical activity (30 minutes on most days) is recommended for everyone because it can raise HDL and may also lower LDL. It is especially important for those with low HDL levels who are overweight.
• Quitting smoking: Smoking is a factor — apart from cholesterol levels- in the development of atherosclerosis so quitting is always good advice for anyone.

If lifestyle changes are not enough to reduce your cholesterol levels to acceptable levels, your doctor may recommend medication. The most commonly prescribed group of cholesterol-lowering drugs is the statins, which work by blocking an enzyme required by the liver to make new cholesterol. This stimulates the liver to remove excess LDL from your blood. Examples include: atorvastatin (Lipitor), rosuvastatin (Crestor) and simvastatin (Zocor).

Another type of drug, the bile-acid-binding resins, causes the liver to use more cholesterol in the synthesis of bile-acids, reducing the level in your blood. Examples include cholestyramine (Prevalite, Questran), colesevelam (WelChol) and colestipol (Colestid).

Cholesterol absorption inhibitors such as ezetimibe (Zetia) limit the absorption of cholesterol from food in the small intestine. Combination drugs like ezetimibe-simvastatin (Vytorin) decreases both absorption of dietary cholesterol in your small intestine and production of cholesterol in your liver.

Some of these medications can result in irritating and sometimes serious side-effects, so it is important to always maintain a dialogue with your doctor when these are prescribed.