Statin drugs like Lipitor and Crestor significantly reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease, rigorous studies have shown. But a “real-world” analysis published in Heart suggests that in practice about half of patients do not benefit from them. British researchers studied 165,411 patients free of cardiovascular disease who started statin therapy between 1990 and 2016. They measured their LDL levels (the “bad” cholesterol) before the study began and again after 24 months, and then followed them for an average of six years. Slightly more than half the patients had what the researchers described as a “suboptimal” responses to the therapy — that is, their LDL decreased by less than 40 percent.

Source: New York Times May 03, 2019 16:06 UTC