Rosuvastatin is a prescription medication used to treat high cholesterol and prevent heart attacks and strokes. It belongs to a class of drugs called statins, which work by blocking an enzyme in the liver called HMG-CoA reductase, leading to the liver making less cholesterol, and increasing the livers uptake of cholesterol from the blood and its breakdown. Rosuvastatin is used together with diet, weight-loss, and exercise to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke and to decrease the chance that heart surgery will be needed in people who have heart disease or who are at risk of developing heart disease. It is also used to decrease the amount of cholesterol such as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (bad cholesterol) and triglycerides in the blood and to increase the amount of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (good cholesterol) in the blood. Rosuvastatin may also be used together with diet to decrease the amount of cholesterol and other fatty substances in the blood in children and teenagers 8 to 17 years of age who have familial heterozygous hypercholesterolemia (an inherited condition in which cholesterol cannot be removed from the body normally). Additionally, it is used together with diet, and alone or in combination with other medications, to decrease the amount of cholesterol and other fatty substances in the blood in adults and children and teenagers 7 to 17 years of age who have familial homozygous hypercholesterolemia (an inherited condition in which cholesterol cannot be removed from the body normally).