To avoid a heart attack, research is confirming time and time again that the answer lies in lowering your LDL (bad) cholesterol and not just a bit, as far as you can get it. LDL levels of 100 and below are considered acceptable limits but dropping to 80 and below is thought to be even better.


Research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), involved a study of 8,800 European patients all of whom had previously had heart attacks. The study found that those who got their LDL levels down to around 81 with prescription of high-dose statins significantly reduced the risk of major heart attacks and strokes at the 4.8 year follow-up point when compared to patients who had reduced their LDL to around 104 on usual-dose statin therapy.

The JAMA study’s findings mirrored those of another large 4,162-patient study, that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2004.That study concluded that LDL cholesterol levels of 62 were markedly better than levels of 95 at preventing heart attacks, other cardiovascular-related problems and death in people with heart disease.

In both studies, the use of mega-doses of statins (double and even triple the usual dose) drove LDL levels way down. However both studies found that the administration of these mega-doses caused their own problems. Some side effects included muscle pain, memory loss, and elevated liver enzymes, and because of this patients on the high doses were found to have stopped taking their medication at twice the drop out rate of patients on regular doses.

I guess there is no such thing as a free lunch, but then again we probably have to try to adjust our life style so we don't end up with the high LDL in the first place.