The Detroit News. Eventually, though, exceptions appeared. A blood-pressure drug called minoxidil also, weirdly, grows hair on people's heads.
Tetracycline antibiotics kill bacteria and relieve rheumatoid arthritis.
Statins originally were approved as treatment for high cholesterol, but it's now clear they help prevent heart attacks and strokes. They probably reduce a person's risk for developing diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. They lower the rate of rejection in people with certain organ transplants. New evidence of their effects seems to tumble out of research laboratories every few months. The drugs are already bestsellers, prescribed to about 12 million Americans.