A study into the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs has found they reduce heart attacks by more than 25 per cent.
The 15-year investigation, by researchers from the University of Glasgow, has shown that patients treated with statins for five years suffer 27 per cent fewer non-fatal heart attacks or deaths due to heart disease.
It appears that the statin treatment reduces the rate occurrence of heart disease events, even after patients stop taking the drug.
Professor Ian Ford, who led the study, said: “We believe that this remarkable ongoing benefit is due to a stabilizing of existing disease in the coronary arteries and significant slowing of further progression of disease. This benefit appears to have persisted for 10 years and may have conferred a lifelong advantage on those treated with the statin.”
The results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The investigation was carried out by the same team who produced the landmark 1995 study that opened the door worldwide for patients to be treated with a statin.
The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study followed volunteers over a 15-year period to investigate the treatment benefits and assess the long-term safety of statin use.
The first results of the study, published in 1995, showed that the risk of death from coronary heart disease or non-fatal heart attack was reduced significantly in men who were prescribed a statin for five years.
A total of 6595 Scottish middle-aged men, who had high cholesterol levels but who had not previously suffered a heart attack, were used in the study. One half of the group were prescribed a statin, while the others were given a placebo.
These patients have now been followed for 15 years and provided the basis for the latest findings.
Professor Ford said: “The results of the follow-up provide strong support for the safety of five years of statin use.
“When fatal and non-fatal heart disease events were studied, it was found that, despite the fact that most of the participants were not treated with a statin after the first five years of the trial there was evidence of the group originally receiving the statin continuing to be at lower risk of having a heart disease event.
“In fact, remarkably, five years of treatment with a statin resulted in 27 per cent fewer non-fatal heart attacks or deaths due to heart disease over the period of 15 years. There was a significant 12 per cent reduction in deaths over the entire period, with deaths due to heart disease reduced by 22 per cent.
“This suggests that statin treatment has a long-term beneficial effect in slowing the development of coronary artery disease.”
Professor Stuart Cobbe, lead cardiologist in the study, said: “We were very surprised to find that patients who had been treated for 5 years with a statin continued to have significantly fewer heart attacks and other coronary events compared to those treated with a placebo treatment. This benefit appeared to extend at least 10 years after the original trial.