Doctors have been unsure why this occurs so quickly.
Some physicians feel it is probably due to a placebo effect.
However, a device that measures how well red blood cells transport oxygen is revealing the medication's magic, Dr. Henry Buchwald of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and colleagues report. The hemoglobin inside red blood cells carries oxygen to all parts of the body including the heart. High concentrations of cholesterol in the blood make the walls of red blood cells more dense by considerably increasing their cholesterol content, the team reports in the May Journal of Heart Disease . As a result, oxygen cannot readily pass through the cell membranes to feed the heart muscle. Patients who experience chest pain probably have clogged arteries combined with high cholesterol, making the heart muscle very low on oxygen.