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.

48

Pro

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Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

48

Community contributions welcome

48

Course of the effects of LDL-cholesterol reduction on cardiovascular risk over time: A meta-analysis of 60 randomized controlled trials.

Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis

Human

2024 Sep

This study looked at whether lowering bad cholesterol by a specific amount reduces heart attacks and strokes, and found that it does — exactly as the claim says: a 1 mmol/L drop leads to about a 22% lower risk.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Course of the effects of LDL-cholesterol reduction on cardiovascular risk over time: A meta-analysis of 60 randomized controlled trials.

Score: 48

DOI: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2024.118540

Similar Assertions

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.

52

0

93%

Taking stronger treatments to lower bad cholesterol seems to cut the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other serious heart problems — even if your cholesterol isn’t that high to begin with.

59

0

82%

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.

0

59

80%

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.

59

0

80%

Lowering your 'bad' cholesterol (LDL) reduces your risk of heart attacks and heart-related deaths — for people who’ve never had heart disease, each big drop in LDL lowers risk by about 1.5%, but for those who already had a heart problem, the same drop cuts risk by nearly 5%.

52

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78%