Welcome to Dr Warrick's Podcast Channel. Warrick is a practising cardiologist and author with a passion for improving care by helping patients understand their heart health through education work believes educated patients get the best health care to discover and understand the latest approaches and technology in heart care and how this might apply to you or someone you love.

Hi, my name is Dr. Warrick Bishop and welcome to my Healthy Heart Minute.

One of the things I get asked pretty regularly is do I need to take these medications forever? Well, often the case is that you do. Sometimes it's not necessarily the case. But often people, once they're on a medication for a particular cause, may need to take it forever.

So if, for example, you had a heart attack or stroke or needed bypass grafting, or a stent, you will need aspirin for the rest of your life. We know that reduces your risk of having another problem in the future. Similarly, we know that if we lower your cholesterol, that that will give you benefit over your lifetime.

Unfortunately, if you take cholesterol for a cholesterol lowering medication for a couple of months, when you stop it, the cholesterol comes back up. The medication really only keeps the cholesterol levels down while you're on that medication. Things like blood pressure tablets, however, and even some diabetic tablets in the early stages may be able to be reduced, particularly if they're associated with you embracing weight loss and exercise. So we know if we can get people's weight down considerably, we can definitely stop medications for blood pressure or even diabetes.

So, do I need to be on this medication forever? Sometimes, but not always.

Check out the podcast that I'll put together on the very topic. It's linked to this. I wish you the very best. Take care and bye for now.

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