If your test results indicate good health and normal or only slightly elevated blood fats and cholesterol, your doctor probably will just urge you to eat better, exercise more, and watch your weight. But if your LDL is more than about 15 percent too high, if you have other heart disease risk factors, or if other tests show you already have clogged arteries, your doctor is almost certain to prescribe a medicine.

That drug will probably be one in a group of medicines called statins. Three of these are available only as higher-cost branded drugs, and three are generics. The brand-only drugs are Crestor, Lescol, and Lipitor. The generics are lovastatin, pravastatin, and simvastatin.

You may recognize the brands above, since some of them have been heavily advertised in recent years. But while the generics seem less familiar, you probably knew their brand names when they, too, were being heavily advertised—names like Pravachol (pravastatin) and Zocor (simvastatin).

There are three other branded drugs that combine a statin with a second medicine. The best known, Vytorin, includes simvastatin and ezetimibe (Zetia), which lowers LDL in a different way than statins. The other two mix a statin with the vitamin niacin, which lowers triglycerides and raises HDL. They are Advicor (lovastatin plus niacin) and Simcor (simvastatin and niacin).

Any statin—branded or generic will lower your LDL cholesterol and your risk of heart attack and death from heart disease or stroke. But they do differ in how much they lower LDL—and also in how much they cost. What really matters from a medical perspective, at least, is how much LDL reduction you need. For example, if your LDL is only 15 percent or so higher than your doctor would like it, you don't really need Crestor, Lipitor, or Vytorin, which are more potent and also more expensive. But if you need to lower your LDL by 30 percent or more, you'll need one of the stronger statins.