Health Claims

Even if you add extra cholesterol drugs like ezetimibe, bempedoic acid, or PCSK-9 inhibitors to statins, people with heart disease don’t live longer — it helps prevent heart attacks, but doesn’t seem to help them survive overall.

Causal

For people with heart artery disease already taking cholesterol pills, adding one of two other types of cholesterol drugs helps lower their chances of heart attacks and strokes — especially strokes — and gives extra protection for their heart health.

Quantitative

Some cholesterol drugs called PCSK9 inhibitors also lower another harmful fat in the blood called lipoprotein(a), and that might help protect the heart in ways that aren't just about lowering bad cholesterol.

Mechanistic

Taking a cholesterol drug called evolocumab to get really low LDL levels doesn’t seem to cause serious side effects like memory problems, diabetes, cataracts, or brain bleeds over 3 years, according to a major study.

Correlational

For people with serious heart disease who are already taking cholesterol-lowering pills, adding one of two special drugs (evolocumab or alirocumab) can lower their chances of having a major heart problem—like a heart attack—by about 15% over a few years.

Quantitative

If you take certain cholesterol-lowering shots like evolocumab or alirocumab every few weeks, they can cut your 'bad' cholesterol by about 60%, even if you're already on cholesterol pills, have a genetic form of high cholesterol, or can't handle statins.

Quantitative

People born with a certain gene change that breaks the PCSK9 gene tend to have much lower 'bad' cholesterol their whole lives and are far less likely to get heart disease — so scientists think blocking this gene with medicine might help protect others' hearts too.

Mechanistic

A drug called alirocumab may help prevent serious heart problems and even lower the chance of dying from heart disease in people at high risk — but we’re still not totally sure about the life-extending effects because the data is limited.

Causal

A drug called Evolocumab helps lower the chance of serious heart problems like heart attacks and strokes in people at high risk — and it seems to work pretty well over about 8 months.

Causal

A shot called inclisiran can cut bad cholesterol by more than half in people at high risk for heart problems, and it works with just two doses a year.

Quantitative

A drug called alirocumab, given as a 75mg shot every couple of weeks, lowered bad cholesterol by almost half in people at high risk for heart problems over six months — a bit less than another similar drug, evolocumab.

Quantitative

A drug called evolocumab, when given every two weeks, cuts bad cholesterol by more than 60% in people at high risk for heart problems — and that result has shown up consistently in several major studies.

Quantitative

For people with clogged arteries who are already on cholesterol drugs, adding a medicine called evolocumab helps lower their risk of heart problems — and it works pretty well even for those who've had a stroke before, though the benefit might be a bit smaller for them.

Quantitative

For people with hardened arteries who are on cholesterol-lowering drugs, adding a drug called evolocumab doesn’t seem to raise their risk of bleeding in the brain.

Quantitative

For people with clogged arteries who are already taking cholesterol drugs, adding a medicine called evolocumab can help lower their chance of having a stroke.

Quantitative

For people with diabetes but no major heart artery disease, adding a drug called evolocumab to their cholesterol medicine might lower their chance of dying over five years — 7.8% of those on the drug died, compared to 10.1% on a placebo.

Correlational

For people with diabetes who are at high heart risk but don’t yet have major artery blockages, adding a drug called evolocumab to their usual cholesterol medicine cuts their chance of heart attack, stroke, or heart-related death by about a third over nearly 5 years.

Causal

For people with diabetes who don’t have serious artery disease, adding a drug called evolocumab to their usual cholesterol medicine lowers bad cholesterol a lot — down to 52, compared to 111 without it — after a year.

Quantitative

For people with diabetes who are at high heart risk but don’t yet have serious artery disease, adding a drug called evolocumab to their cholesterol medicine (statin) cuts their chance of having a first heart attack, stroke, or heart-related death by about a third over nearly 5 years.

Causal

Does the drug evolocumab help prevent heart attacks, strokes, or related heart problems in people with artery disease or high-risk diabetes who haven't had a heart attack or stroke before?

Causal

A big heart study is checking if adding a drug called evolocumab to usual cholesterol treatment helps prevent heart attacks, strokes, or heart-related deaths in people at high risk who haven’t had one before.

Causal

They're testing if a drug called Evolocumab, given as a shot every two weeks, can help prevent serious heart problems in people with artery disease or high-risk diabetes who haven't had a heart attack or stroke yet.

Causal

If someone with heart disease already has low 'bad' cholesterol on standard statin pills, stepping up their treatment even more can cut the chance of needing heart procedures like stents or bypass surgery by more than a third.

Correlational

If someone with heart disease already has low 'bad' cholesterol on standard statin pills, stepping up their treatment might cut their risk of heart attacks or strokes by almost half.

Quantitative