If lifestyle modifications alone don't help to lower your cholesterol levels, your doctor may prescribe a cholesterol-lowering drug.

The best drug or combination of drugs for your cholesterol levels depends on your age, health, risk factors, and tolerance of the drugs.

Depending on your risk factors for heart disease and stroke, your doctor will set a goal number for your cholesterol.

The most commonly prescribed cholesterol drugs include:

Statins: Statins work by blocking a substance your liver needs to make cholesterol, which in turn causes your liver to remove cholesterol from your blood.

Statins may also potentially reverse coronary artery disease by helping your body reabsorb cholesterol from built-up deposits along the walls of your arteries.

Statin options include atorvastatin (Lipitor), rosuvastatin (Crestor), fluvastatin (Lescol), lovastatin (Altoprev, Mevacor), pitavastatin (Livalo), pravastatin (Pravachol), and simvastatin (Zocor).

Bile-acid-binding resins: Cholesterol is needed to make bile acids, a substance that aids in digestion.

Bile-acid-binding resins bind to bile acids, as the name suggests, triggering your liver to use excess cholesterol to make more bile acids, which reduces the level of cholesterol in your blood.

Bile-acid-binding resins include cholestyramine (Prevalite), colesevelam (Welchol), and colestipol (Colestid). They are typically prescribed along with a statin.

Cholesterol absorption inhibitors: These drugs limit the amount of dietary cholesterol your small intestine absorbs so it cannot be released into your bloodstream.

The drug ezetimibe (Zetia) can be used in combination with any of the statin drugs.

Combination cholesterol absorption inhibitor and statin: This combination drug limits the absorption of dietary cholesterol by your small intestine and the production of cholesterol by your liver.

The combination drug is ezetimibe-simvastatin (Vytorin).

Triglyceride-Lowering Medications

If you have high triglycerides in addition to high levels of cholesterol, your doctor may also prescribe:

Fibrates: These medications reduce your liver's production of very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), which is made up mostly of triglycerides, and by increasing the removal of triglycerides from your blood.

Fenofibrate (TriCor) and gemfibrozil (Lopid) are commonly prescribed fibrates.

Omega-3 fatty acid supplements: Omega-3 fatty acid supplements, most often a blend of fish oils, can help lower your triglycerides.

You can take these in conjunction with a statin and they may be over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription (Lovaza).

If you opt to take over-the-counter supplements, make sure to let your doctor know as even OTC varieties may affect other medications you're taking.

Niacin: Also known as vitamin B3 (Niaspan), niacin limits your liver's ability to produce LDL and VLDL cholesterol and decreases your production of triglycerides. Niacin also raises good (HDL) cholesterol.

But niacin hasn't been proven to provide any additional benefit than using statins alone, and it's been linked to liver damage and increased risk of stroke, so most doctors recommend it only for people who can't take statins.

Side Effects of Cholesterol Medications

The most common side effects of cholesterol-lowering medications include muscle pain and weakness, stomach pain, constipation, nausea, and diarrhea.

To reduce side effects and increase the performance of cholesterol lowering drugs, it's important to take them exactly as your doctor prescribes.

Let your doctor know if you are experiencing any of these and he or she can change your dosage or suggest an alternative medication.

Always contact your doctor immediately if your symptoms are severe.

Because some of these drugs affect your liver, you may need to have your liver function tested occasionally.