The cholesterol-lowering drugs collectively known as “statins” are among the top drugs sold in the United States, and worldwide. Although current guidelines only recommend the use of statins for people with elevated cholesterol, there is new evidence that these recommendations should be expanded. The November 20, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine will report the findings of the Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin (JUPITER), which were also reported on November 9 at an American Heart Association Conference in New Orleans. The JUPITER trial studied nearly 18,000 healthy adults without high cholesterol and found that daily therapy with rosuvastatin (Crestor) significantly prevented cardiovascular events. Read more →