Drugs and lipid metabolism.

I propose to give a review of the effect of drugs on lipid metabolism which will be extensive rather than intensive. Several excellent reviews are available that discuss the drugs which are most effective for lowering plasma lipid levels in the six main types of human hyperlipoproteinaemia (Lees & Wilson, 1971 ; British Medical Journal, I 972 ; Levy, Fredrickson, Shulman, Bilheimer, Breslow, Stone, Lux, Sloan, Krauss & Herbert, 1972). But there are other drugs, not thought of as lipidlowering agents, that can decrease or increase one or more of the plasma lipids. I shall try to review these, and also some facets of lipid metabolism, other than plasma concentrations, as affected by drugs. I shall restrict myself to drugs that are available and used in clinical medicine. If I were to include drugs that have been used to influence lipid metabolism in experimental animals or the new lipid-lowering drugs that are still at the stage of clinical trials and not yet approved, the list would be at least twice as long.