Q: My triglycerides are 240mh/dl and HDL is 39mg/dl. The doctor has advised me to control the cholesterol levels by taking medicine Niyat-10 for 3 months, 1 tab daily and asked me to recheck after 3 months. Please let me know if there is any harm in taking this medicine? Does it have any side effects? Is there any other way to control?

A:You have not given your total cholesterol level. I assume it is either normal or slightly above normal. When triglycerides are high with normal or high cholesterol levels, the drug of choice is one of the fibrates such as bezafibrate (trade name: Bezalip) or fenofibrate (trade name: Lipicard) or gemfibrozil (trade name: Lopid). Niyat is a combination medicine that contains two drugs: nicotinic acid and atorvastatin. All medicines require prior approval from the Drugs Controller General, India (DCGI) before they are sold. As per our information, a combination of nicotinic acid with atorvastatin has not been approved by DCGI. In general, medicines should be given individually and not in combination so that individual dose can be titrated. It is even more important in medicines such as nicotinic acid when dose needs to be gradually increased to avoid unpleasant side effects.