Niacin has been used for many years in the belief that it would help patients and prevent heart attacks and stroke, but we now know that its adverse side effects outweigh the benefits when used with current treatments.
He also said the results "do not bode well" for larger studies that aim to prove Zetia and Vytorin prevent heart attacks, strokes and deaths better than other medicines.
Either the imaging technique doesn't predict whether drugs prevent heart attacks and strokes, or Zetia isn't going to prevent heart attacks and strokes, says Prediman K. Shah, a researcher who studies cholesterol at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Health services must take the long term view and prevent the heart attacks, strokes, blindness and kidney damage that diabetes can cause.
They were also high in those taking aspirin which, counterintuitively, is often prescribed to reduce clot formation and thus prevent heart attacks.
They can lower bad cholesterol, or LDL, by as much as 50% and are proven to prevent heart attacks and save lives.
For instance, if doctors announced that eating 12 oranges a day would increase longevity and prevent strokes, heart attacks and all sorts of cancers, the price of oranges would soar until new groves were planted.
And since it will prevent thousands of heart attacks and cases of childhood asthma, it will also take some strain off our health care system.
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But today, at the annual Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association and in the medical journal Lancet, researchers announced that Tricor failed to stop heart attacks and prevent deaths in a five-year study of almost 10, 000 diabetics.
Vytorin competes with statin drugs like Lipitor from Pfizer and Crestor from AstraZeneca, which have been shown to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
But some have questioned whether lowering cholesterol with Zetia will prevent heart attacks, strokes and heart procedures as well as statins do, since Zetia works differently from the older drugs (see: "The Statin Showdown").
AstraZeneca 's (nyse: AZN - news - people ) Crestor began a big survival trial three years before, and it just finished early, proving that Vytorin's main rival does prevent heart attacks and strokes.
For cholesterol lowering, brand-name Lipitor from Pfizer and Crestor from AstraZeneca are the most potent "statin" medications, but generic versions of Zocor and Mevacor from Merck, or Pravachol from Bristol-Myers Squibb are all proven to prevent heart attacks and may do just fine for you.
Niacin was always known to raise good cholesterol and appears also to prevent heart attacks.
Ministers said that computer modelling shows that offering the checks to those aged 40 to 74 - approximately a third of the population - will save 2, 000 lives a year and prevent 9, 500 heart attacks and strokes.
To Krumholz, this is part of a larger tapestry of unexpected clinical trial results that should make doctors, patients and regulators demand more hard information about whether drugs reduce symptoms or prevent problems like heart attacks and deaths.
This is the second study in which a prescription form of niacin has failed to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
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IMPROVE-IT tests whether lowering LDL to previously unheard-of levels will prevent heart attacks and strokes in people who have already had cardiovascular problems.
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For instance, aspirin seems to prevent heart attacks and cause strokes in low-risk medicine, but a controversial study showed it did the opposite in women.
The technology will prevent heart attacks and save lives and at a fraction of the cost of more invasive procedures like an MRI or angiogram.
But while Zocor has been shown to prevent heart attacks and strokes in tens of thousands of patients, Zetia has not been proven to have any such benefit.
This is a medicine to prevent heart attacks and strokes in patients who suffer acute coronary syndrome, the condition that occurs after a heart attack or serious heart-related chest pain.
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She used to be a big prescriber of omega-3 fish oil, but has stopped because the failure of niacin, a drug that lowered triglycerides, to prevent heart attacks and strokes.
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Many investors expect that these drugs might be approved, at least in some patients, based only on studies of their cholesterol-lowering potency, not hard proof they prevent heart attacks and strokes.
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AtheroGenics saw the failure of its key trial of AGI-1067, a pill designed to prevent heart attacks and strokes, torpedo the chances of the drug being approved in the next year.
The goal: to create a drug that would prevent heart attacks and become a massive seller, potentially replacing Lipitor, the world's best-selling medicine, when it loses patent protection as early as 2010.
King, a noted interventional cardiologist at Fuqua Heart Center in Atlanta, wrote that he was unsure patients would opt for stents if they knew the devices would not prevent heart attacks and deaths.
The studies are not definitive, but they are likely to further add to the glow surrounding the statins, which are proven to prevent heart attacks and may also prevent other diseases, such as Alzheimer's.
King, a noted interventional cardiologist at Fuqua Heart Center in Atlanta, wrote in an editorial that he was unsure that patients would opt for stents if they knew the devices would prevent heart attacks and deaths.
Rival Actos, from Japanese drug maker Takeda, does not seem to cause heart attacks and may prevent them.
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