Even when cholesterol is driven down to very low levels, it doesn’t raise the chance of bleeding in the brain — at least not in the first few years of treatment.

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Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

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Safety and efficacy of very low LDL-cholesterol intensive lowering: a meta-analysis and meta-regression of randomized trials.

Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis

Human

2023 Feb 2

This study looked at over 100,000 people and found that having very low 'bad' cholesterol doesn’t make you more likely to have a bleeding stroke — it’s just as safe as having higher levels.

Contradicting (0)

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No contradicting evidence found

Source Study

Safety and efficacy of very low LDL-cholesterol intensive lowering: a meta-analysis and meta-regression of randomized trials.

Score: 59

DOI: 10.1093/ehjcvp/pvac049

Similar Assertions

Getting cholesterol extremely low doesn’t seem to make people more likely to get cancer, stroke, diabetes, liver problems, muscle issues, or cataracts — at least not in the time frame studied.

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When people lower their 'bad' cholesterol to very low levels using strong medications, they have fewer heart attacks and strokes than those with higher cholesterol levels.

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Taking strong cholesterol drugs to get LDL very low doesn’t make you more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than taking standard doses.

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If you lower your 'bad' cholesterol by about 1 point (from around 3.16 to 2.16), you cut your risk of heart attacks, strokes, or needing heart surgery by roughly a quarter—no matter if you use statins or other drugs that work the same way.

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Lowering your 'bad' cholesterol by just a little bit—about 1 mmol/L—can cut your risk of serious heart problems like heart attacks or strokes by roughly 22%, and this has been seen again and again in big studies with hundreds of thousands of people.

72%