Statins may not lower the risk of early death

STATINS and other cholesterol-reducing drugs rarely have a positive impact on the risk of early death, a new study has found.

The findings, published in BMJ Evidence-based Medicine, suggest decades of research has failed to show a “consistent benefit” for taking the drugs to curb heart disease, the researchers said.

The study analysed the results of 35 clinical trials comparing treatment using cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins, ezetimibe and PCSK9) with usual care or placebo drugs, for a period of at least a year in at-risk patients. The researchers then calculated the number of people who would need to be treated to prevent one cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke.

Their analysis showed that three quarters of all the trials reported no positive impact on risk of early death and nearly half reported no positive impact on risk of future cardiovascular disease.

Dr Robert Dubroff, study author, of University of New Mexico School of Medicine in the US, said targeting “bad” LDL cholesterol should prevent cardiovascular events in patients at highest risk.

But he said: “Unfortunately, the risk-guided model performs poorly in achieving these goals.”

Thirteen of the trials met the LDL cholesterol reduction target, but only one reported a positive impact on risk of early death and five reported a reduction in the risk of heart events.

Professor Robert Storey, professor of cardiology at the University of Sheffield, said there was “no controversy” around the evidence that cholesterol treatment drugs were effective in lowering LDL cholesterol in patients with fatty build-ups in the arteries.