What do bile acid sequestrants do?

Bile acid sequestrants are medicines that help lower your LDL (bad) cholesterol. Too much cholesterol in your blood can stick to the walls of your arteries and narrow or block them. These medicines work by blocking bile acid in your stomach from being absorbed in your blood.

How do bile acids work?

Bile acids induce biliary lipid secretion and solubilize cholesterol in bile, promoting its elimination. In the small intestine, bile acids solubilize dietary lipids promoting their absorption. Bile acids are cytotoxic when present in abnormally high concentrations.

What is the mechanism of action of cholestyramine?

Cholestyramine binds to bile acids in the intestine. This prevents their absorption, and the cholestyramine/bile acid complexes are eliminated in the stool. As a result, the body loses bile acids. To compensate for this loss, the liver increases the conversion of cholesterol to bile acids.

How does ursodiol work for cholestasis?

By replacing the hydrophobic or more toxic bile acids with ursodiol, the toxic effects of cholestasis are ameliorated. Unlike other primary bile acids, ursodiol has little agonist activity with FXR, the bile acid sensing nuclear receptor.

Do bile acid sequestrants decrease triglycerides?

Bile acid sequestrants (cholestyramine or colestipol) raise triglyceride levels and are not appropriate therapy for hypertriglyceridemia. However, in patients with a mixed hyperlipidemia, resins may be combined with niacin or a fibrate.

What is the importance of chenodeoxycholic acid in digestion?

Higher vertebrates synthesize the primary bile acids, cholic acid and chenodeoxycholic acid (the major metabolites of cholesterol), in the liver and use them to aid both the elimination of nonpolar substances in bile and the digestion and absorption of fats in the intestine.

What is the role of bile in digestion Class 10?

Bile is a fluid that is made and released by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Bile helps with digestion. It breaks down fats into fatty acids, which can be taken into the body by the digestive tract.

How does cholestyramine work for diarrhea?

Cholestyramine is able to reduce fluid secretion in the large intestine and improve symptoms of diarrhea through binding to bile acids and making them osmotically inactive [2,9].