"Excerpt from "Important Information About ADVICOR":
ADVICORŪ has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks. Isn't lowering cholesterol supposed to prevent heart disease or heart attacks...

That's my main dilema with cholesterol lowering drugs. There is no denying they lower cholesterol, but people are still dying of heart attacks and having strokes.... can someone explain why?"

The fact that the entire story surrounding the causes of heart disease may not be known is not a good reason to ignore those facts that are. The relationship between high levels of LDL and atherosclerosis is not a matter of controversy (except possibly on this board), nor is the relationship between atherosclerosis and heart attacks.

Atorvastatin for instance can claim to reduce heart attacks whereas Rosuvastatin cannot. Why? The former has been studied more than the latter, even though the latter is slightly more powerful in lowering cholesterol.

The claim of reducing heart disease is marketing, whereas the efficacy shown in studies is not.

Hunter44 said, "If the studies show that a drug [in this case Advicor] is effecient at reducing or preventing heart disease/heart attacks, wouldn't the company marketing the drug want to state that?"

Yes they would, but the rules are, you can't say it if it isn't true, and it isn't true if there's nothing to back it up. That rule is specific to medicine. Now, in the case of something dietary you can make fantastical claims.

Take Cortaslim for example. Its a mix of herbs, its dietary, and can therefore claim to help you lose weight. It is more likely to help you lose money...and of course if its in coinage the weight loss will be real enough.

Other products can claim to regrow hair. They don't, but they can claim it. Its marketing. Marketing = BS. Some marketing has a grain of truth, some has none. Science will have some truth, and sometimes a grain of marketing.

Advicor hasn't been specifically studied to show a reduction in heart disease, so even though it does what all statins do, it hasn't shown specific efficacy as Atorvastatin has.

Is it likely to have the same efficacy? Actually no, it may have more, or it may have less because its not exactly the same thing.

Ironically, Lipitor's recent proofs were made by a competitor in a study called PROVE IT meant to show the efficacy of Pravachol. What it showed is that Pravachol is a weak sister compared to Lipitor. Not what they were looking to show, and also a black eye for those who see conspiracy in all the drug companies do.

"What did PROVE IT prove?"

[quote]The study, called PROVE IT, for Pravastatin or Atorvastatin Evaluation and Infection Therapy, was based at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard affiliate in Boston. And for several reasons the results involved major surprises.

The sponsor of the research, Bristol-Myers Squibb, maker of Pravachol, expected to prove that this drug is just as good as its more potent rival Lipitor, made by Pfizer. "We were as surprised by the findings as the sponsor," Braunwald notes. "To their great credit, the company was totally supportive in our making the results public soon after they were available."

The surprises extend to the roots of basic research and to the practices of doctors worldwide. "There was a common belief that once you lower harmful low-density cholesterol to 100 milligrams per deciliter, you achieve little further gain by going any lower," Braunwald points out. "Certainly, that's what I believed. But those who took the high-dose statin reached a level of about 62, and over two and a half years these people enjoyed a 16 percent lower risk of heart attacks, stroke, bypass surgery, rehospitalization for cardiac events, and death from all causes."