People who take cholesterol-lowering drugs and get their bad cholesterol really low don’t seem to have more side effects than those who don’t get it as low.

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.

If your 'bad' cholesterol is 100 or higher, lowering it more aggressively helps prevent heart-related deaths. But if it's already below 100, lowering it even more doesn't seem to help much — there might be a cutoff where treatment stops adding extra benefit.

If you have high 'bad' cholesterol, lowering it more aggressively can help you live longer, especially if your levels are really high to begin with. Doctors should decide how hard to treat based on how high your cholesterol is and your overall heart risk.

Lowering bad cholesterol really aggressively helps prevent heart attacks and strokes in people who already have heart disease, but it doesn’t actually help them live longer — which scientists call the 'cholesterol mortality paradox'.

People who take strong cholesterol-lowering drugs to get their LDL very low don’t stop taking them more often because of side effects than those on regular doses.