How to use Zetia. Read the Patient Information Leaflet if available from your pharmacist before you start taking ezetimibe and each time you get a refill. Does Zetia Cause the Same Side Effects as Other Cholesterol Drugs? Since Zetia works a little differently than the more popular cholesterol medications like Lipitor and Crestor, many people wonder if it can still cause the serious side effects that those drugs are known to cause such as severe muscle breakdown, liver trouble and kidney failure. Zetia (ezetimibe) is a drug used to help treat high cholesterol, and works in a different way than statins, which lower cholesterol by 35 to 60 percent in most patients and reduce the risk of heart attacks among them. Because statins may pass into breast milk, and because statins have the potential to cause serious adverse reactions in nursing infants, women who require Zetia treatment in combination with a statin should be advised not to nurse their infants [see Use in Specific Populations (8.3)]. Zetia. It is the brand name of a drug called ezetimibe, a lipid-lowering compound that is used to treat high LDL cholesterol levels. It works by decreasing the absorption of cholesterol from the intestine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Zetia (ezetimibe) in October 2002 to manage high cholesterol. It was approved to be used either alone or in combination with the widely used family of cholesterol lowering agents known as “statins.” ZETIA administered with statins and 0.4% for patients treated with statins alone. These elevations in These elevations in transaminases were generally asymptomatic, not associated with cholestasis, and returned to baseline It’s about the high dose statins, not Zetia. What guidelines in the United States do recommend you take after a coronary event is atorvastatin ( Lipitor ) 80 mg or Crestor 40 mg for high risk patients, and that does save lives. Zetia (ezetimibe) reduces the amount of cholesterol absorbed by the body. Zetia is used to treat high cholesterol. Zetia is sometimes given with other cholesterol-lowering medications. Although Zetia (ezetimibe) can be used alone it is often prescribed as adjunctive to a statin drug. Zetia by itself is not a statin. Its mechanism of action has to do with reducing the absorption of cholesterol in your digestive tract, including from the food we eat.