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Editor's Note
February 13, 2019

Statins Work, but Only in People Who Take Them

Author Affiliations
  • 1Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, North Carolina
  • 2Associate Editor, JAMA Cardiology
JAMA Cardiol. 2019;4(3):214. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2018.4948

A robust body of clinical trial evidence supports the effect of statins on mortality. Pooled data from clinical trials indicate that statins lower mortality by 12% per millimole per liter (38.67 mg/dL) reduction in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels (to convert LDL-C to millimoles per liter, multiply by 0.0259).1 Prior observational work has shown the link between statin adherence and mortality.2 Thus, the finding of Rodriguez et al3 that increasing adherence to statins was associated with decreasing mortality is not unexpected.

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