Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
Taking statins can lower your bad cholesterol enough to cut your chance of needing heart surgery or stents by almost half—even if you're not at high risk for heart disease right now.
Causal
Taking statins to lower your 'bad' cholesterol by a small amount can cut your chance of having a heart attack by nearly half—even if you're not at high risk for heart disease yet.
If you're at low risk for heart attacks or strokes in the next five years, taking a statin to lower your 'bad' cholesterol by a small amount can prevent about 11 serious heart or blood vessel problems per 1,000 people over five years — and that help is bigger than the side effects you might get.
Quantitative
Taking statins to lower your 'bad' cholesterol by a specific amount can cut your chance of having a heart attack or stroke by about 1 in 5—even if you’ve never had heart problems before and are considered low risk.
The cells that make both IL-17 and IFN-γ actually went down after stress — meaning the IL-17 causing damage probably came from cells that were already making it, not new ones being created.
The mice lost a little weight from the stress, but not more than they did from just eating a fatty diet — so the plaque bursts weren’t caused by extreme sickness or starvation.
Before the plaque actually burst, 8 out of 10 had bleeding inside them — meaning bleeding happens before the cap breaks, and might be a warning sign.
Descriptive
Over time, the strong fibrous cap covering the fatty core in the artery got much thinner compared to the size of the fatty core — making the plaque more likely to burst, like a weak roof over a big hole.
Even though the mice had fatty plaques and they burst, their blood fat levels didn’t change — meaning the rupture wasn’t caused by worse cholesterol, but by something else, like immune activity.
After the plaque burst, the number of immune cells that calm down inflammation went up — like the body’s way of trying to fix the damage after the explosion.
In the artery walls where plaques burst, the genes that make Th17 and Th1 immune cells were turned way up — showing the immune system was actively working right at the site of damage.
When scientists added IL-17 to artery muscle cells in a dish, the cells started dying off in large numbers — especially at higher doses — which could explain how plaques get weak and burst.
Mechanistic
When the plaques burst in the mice, a chemical called IL-17 showed up in high amounts in their blood and right where the plaque broke — like a warning signal at the scene of the damage.
When mice with fatty arteries were stressed, the number of a specific type of immune cell called Th17 went up dramatically — but another type, Th1, stayed the same, suggesting Th17 might be special in causing artery damage.
In mice with fatty artery buildup, a quick burst of stress (like cold, a toxin, and a blood pressure drug) caused 3 out of 4 fragile plaques to burst, but only if the plaque was already weak — strong plaques didn’t break.
When people ate less animal fat, their bad cholesterol went down and their belly fat became less inflamed — and heart attacks dropped fast.
Even though heart treatments didn’t get better in the early 1990s, heart disease deaths still dropped — pointing to diet as the likely reason.
When the balance of omega-3 to omega-6 fats in body fat improves, there are fewer inflammation-causing immune cells — meaning omega-3s may help calm inflammation.
Correlational
Fewer people were obese in the early 1990s in the Czech Republic, and this was linked to less body-wide inflammation and fewer heart disease deaths.
In the early 1990s, Czech doctors didn’t have access to modern heart drugs like statins or new blood pressure medications.
The drug didn’t affect blood sugar or fat levels in the blood, so its benefits aren’t due to improving how the body handles sugar or fat.
When people ate less butter and more plant oils, their overall heart disease risk score — based on good and bad cholesterol — got better.
The mice didn’t gain or lose weight or eat differently with the drug, so the benefits aren’t just because they were eating less or changing their metabolism.
After the Czech government stopped subsidizing butter and fatty meats, heart disease deaths in men dropped dramatically over the next two decades.