Statin Drugs May Help Millions Battle Heart Disease

B O S T O N, May 16 -- Under guidelines issued Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health, the number of people who can benefit from taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs nearly triples.

This is only the second time the National Institutes of Health has revised its guidelines for preventing heart disease. Several studies have found that reducing the level of low-density lipoprotein or LDL can reduce the short-term risk of heart disease by as much as 40 percent. Heart disease kills some 500,000 people a year.

For some time, ABCNEWS' Dr. Tim Johnson has been singing the praises of statins. They're extremely effective and have almost no side effects, he says. The new findings appear to confirm this assessment.

Under the old guidelines, 13 million Americans were targets for cholesterol-lowering drugs; under the new guidelines, that number rises to 36 million, meaning far more people should be able to use them to decrease their risk for heart disease.

"We've suspected for a long time that lowering cholesterol would save lives. It's common sense," Johnson said. "But we still had to see the evidence, and we have it now."

Reign in Cholesterol

Based on the 200-page NIH report, which also stressed the importance of diet and exercise in battling cholesterol, Johnson offered the following tips for lowering your risk of heart disease:

Get a complete cholesterol blood profile test every five years, starting at age 20. It should include a total number, LDL (low density lipoprotein), HDL (high density lipoprotein) and triglycerides.

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Keep "bad" cholesterol, the LDL kind, below 100.

Keep good cholesterol above 40, slightly above the old guideline of 35.

The targets for cholesterol are much lower than they were, Johnson said. The new goal is to get your LDL, or "bad" cholesterol level, below 100. The old recommendation was 130. Johnson pointed out that these are the strictest guidelines, set for people with many risk factors.

If you don't have any risk factors, you can get away with a little higher bad cholesterol. One of the independent risk factors listed in the report is diabetes, Johnson said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.