Many ways to lower cholesterol will reduce heart disease risk

Several contemporary clinical trials have shown that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs reduce the risk of heart attacks in patients with coronary artery disease. This compelling body of evidence has led to the question of whether other drugs that lower cholesterol also reduce heart attacks. Older studies had certainly shown this, though these studies were from an era prior to widespread statin use. A recent study showed that in patients with a mild heart attack, adding ezetimibe — a drug that interferes with cholesterol absorption from the intestines — to a statin reduced cardiovascular risk compared with a statin alone.
Now, a carefully done meta-analysis synthesizes all the studies to date and provides some new insights. A meta-analysis is a way of combining data from many studies over several years and analyzing the data to provide a bottom-line message. This particular meta-analysis consisted of data drawn from 49 studies of a total of 312,175 patients, a staggering number. The authors included only randomized clinical trials — the most rigorous type of study — and went back all the way to 1966 in their search for relevant trials.
The degree of benefit provided by statin and certain non-statin approaches that work predominantly by increasing the number of receptors in the body to clear out LDL cholesterol was roughly similar. The non-statin approaches included diet, bile acid sequestrants, ezetimibe, and ileal bypass surgery. Additional non-statin drugs assessed i...

Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 7, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH Tags: Health Heart Health Source Type: blogs