What happens when you add stronger cholesterol medicine to statins?
Efficacy of lipid lowering therapy beyond statins to prevent cardiovascular events
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Some people take extra cholesterol drugs with their statins to help prevent heart problems. This study looked at lots of past research to see if those extra drugs help.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 548 / 100
Evidence Score
The highest quality evidence. These studies systematically search, appraise, and synthesize results from multiple individual studies, providing the most reliable summary of current knowledge.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Some people take extra cholesterol drugs with their statins to help prevent heart problems. This study looked at lots of past research to see if those extra drugs help.
No biological mechanisms were identified in this study. This may be an epidemiological, observational, or survey-based study that reports associations rather than proposing causal biological pathways.
Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
Max 100Randomized Controlled Trials
Max 90Cohort Studies
Max 72Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional Studies
Max 44Case Reports & Case Series
Max 30Expert Opinion & Narrative Reviews
Max 548 / 100
Evidence Score
The highest quality evidence. These studies systematically search, appraise, and synthesize results from multiple individual studies, providing the most reliable summary of current knowledge.
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Claims (4)
Adding a drug called evolocumab to cholesterol-lowering statins can lower the chances of serious heart problems by 20% in people who already have heart disease.
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.
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.
For people with heart disease, adding certain cholesterol-lowering drugs to their usual statin medicine cuts the chance of having a stroke by 23%—and this protection might be even better than for heart attacks.