Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Show No Benefit: Drug Trials Prove It

Millions of people are taking cholesterol-lowering drugs thinking they’re going to live longer. This proud certainty stems from advertising, not science. The cholesterol lowering drug trials prove it.

Starting with Crestor. Crestor plummeted cholesterol levels, yet failed to show any effectiveness, as could be seen by a 0% decrease in absolute total mortality rates among users.

Other statin drug trials show this same trend. Joel Kauffman, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, teaches that the WOSCOPS trial showed only a 0.9% absolute drop in absolute total mortality among those taking the statin drug Pravachol over five years. Ignoring the placebo group, Pravachol drug pushers touted a 22% drop in relative risk reduction for total mortality.

Many might argue that while Pravachol does not prevent early death, it does prevent heart attack and stroke. This is false. With respect to heart attack and stroke, the PROSPER trial showed that Pravachol provided no reduction in heart attack or stroke among those who had no previous signs of cardiovascular disease (termed primary prevention) and an absolute risk reduction of 4.3% among those who did (termed secondary prevention).

The statin drug trial known as LIPID showed these same results. The Long Term Intervention with Pravachol in Ischemic Heart Disease (LIPID) showed a contemptible absolute risk reduction in total mortality of 3.1%. Pravachol drug pushers touted a 21% drop in relative risk reduction for total mortality.

Even the most favorable statin drug trial, having minimal conflicts of interest and ethically sound reporting, the Heart Protection Study (HPS), yielded users of Zocor (simvastatin) with only a 1.8% drop in absolute risk reduction for total mortality. Another trial involving Zocor, the 4S trial, showed a minimal 3.3% drop in absolute risk reduction for total mortality among users. Zocor drug pushers touted a 29% relative risk reduction for total mortality.

The Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial ─ Lipid Lowering Arm (ASCOT-LLA) trial, designed to identify the benefits of Lipitor (atorvastatin), showed 0% reduction in absolute total mortality rates among users. Looking at absolute risk reduction of heart attack and stroke, Lipitor yielded a miniscule reduction of 1.2% over 3.3 years. Lipitor drug pushers touted… whatever they wanted.

Lipitor ads were most honest. The fine (really fine) print on the back of ads declared that Lipitor “has not been shown to prevent heart disease.” Believe it.

Figure 1. Fine print included in ads for Lipitor by Pfizer courtesy of Weston A. Price Foundation. See the last sentence.

[Related: How to Bullet Proof Your Cardiovascular System]

The most recent statin drug trial showing the ineffectiveness of Lipitor was the TNT (Treating to New Targets) study. Those receiving low-dose Lipitor reduced their mean LDL-cholesterol levels to 101 mg/dL, while those taking the high dose brought their LDL readings down to 77 mg/dL. After a median follow-up of 4.9 years, neither the high-dose nor low-dose group prevented early death. Lipitor drug pushers ignored this and touted a 20% relative risk reduction in coronary events.

Unable to decipher the deceptive statistics, a compliant media shouted “lower is better” with respect to LDL-cholesterol. Fucking sheep.

Combining statin drug trial results (meta-analysis) also failed to show any benefit to using statin drugs. Researchers from Therapeutic Initiatives performed a meta-analysis of five major statin drug trials, these being PROSPER, ALLHAT-LLT, ASCOT-LLA, AFCAPS and WOSCOPS.

In the pooled data of these trials, statin drugs provided a total absolute risk reduction in total mortality of 0.3% among those who showed no signs of having cardiovascular disease (primary prevention). With respect to preventing heart attack and stroke, the five combined studies showed that statins prevented these events by a mere 1.4%.

The statin drug trials proved something else. Medicine is a cult of hype. And far too many people have let themselves be conditioned to make decisions on obscure bits of data spoon fed by the media and doctors who quote ads rather than science.