Aggressive lowering of cholesterol prevents further heart attack

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Treatment of high cholesterol is beneficial to patients who have had a heart attack, according to a new study.
Lowering of low density lipoprotein (LDL, or 'bad') cholesterol with statins is known to help patients who have heart disease. One question has been how low the LDL should go to get maximum benefit. A new study from the Ulleval University Hospital, Oslo, Norway, seeks to address this question.

They looked at nearly 9,000 patients who had had a heart attack and these participants received either a high dose of atorvastatin or a usual dose of simvastatin. In the former group, LDL went down to an average of 81 mg/dL and to 104 mg/dL in the latter. The results, after around five years of follow up, showed that those in the atorvastatin group had a reduced risk of having a further heart attack. The increased dose of statin did not seem to lead to any increase in serious side effects.

Source
Journal of the American Medical Association 16th November 2005 Volume 294 pages 2492-2494

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