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Taking a cholesterol-lowering drug for five years in middle age could lower heart and death risks for decades, and the benefits seemed to grow over time, a study in Scotland has found.
Doctors have said it was the first evidence that early use of a statin could have a legacy effect, perhaps permanently changing someone's odds of disease.
"It might be a lifetime effect," said one study leader, Dr Chris Packard of the University of Glasgow in Scotland.
Not only did original benefits of statins continue into late life, but researchers were surprised to see new ones become evident over time, he said.
The results are from the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Trial, the first study to show that statins could prevent heart problems in people who had not yet developed clogged arteries but had high LDL, the bad type of cholesterol.
The watershed trial led to these drugs becoming a mainstay of treatment and among of the most prescribed medicines around the world.
The long-term results were discussed at an American Heart Association conference that ended on Wednesday in Chicago.
The study, which started in 1989, involved about 6,600 Scottish men, aged 45 to 64, with high LDL. Half were given the statin Pravachol and the rest, dummy pills. Five years later, there were 35 per cent fewer heart-related deaths and also fewer heart attacks in the statin group.
Once the study ended, the men went back to their personal doctors, and about one-third of both groups continued, or started, taking a statin. This means any differences seen years later probably was due to whether they took statins during the five-year study, Packard explained.
Scotland has good medical records, so researchers were able to document what happened to more than 90 per cent of the men.
Moving on 20 years after the study began, the risk of heart-related deaths was 27 per cent lower among the men who took Pravachol for those first five years rather than dummy pills.
The chance of dying from any cause was 13 per cent lower in the statin group at the 20-year mark, a benefit not seen earlier on.
"The big surprise" was a 31 per cent lower risk of heart failure in the group initially assigned to take the statin, Packard said.


Scottish study shows heart benefit of the use of statins earlier in life

Statin drugs

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World

Taking a cholesterol-lowering drug for five years in middle age could lower heart and death risks for decades, and the benefits seemed to grow over time, a study in Scotland has found.
