Statin (cholesterol) drugs: large benefit, small risk

Summary:  
A large analysis of ~170,000 patients revealed that taking a statin cholesterol drug was equally good for low risk patients as it was for high risk patients in preventing heart attacks, strokes, and bypass surgery or stents.  The overall rates of side effects were very low.

In Brief:
Over approximately a 5 year span, the "...proportional reduction in major vascular events was at least as big in the two lowest risk categories as in the higher risk categories."  

Major vascular events were defined as:  non-fatal myocardial infarction (heart attack), strokes, or coronary revascularisations (stents or bypass).  "In individuals with 5-year risk of major vascular events lower than 10% [low risk patients], each 1 mmol/L reduction in LDL cholesterol produced an absolute reduction in major vascular events of about 11 per 1000 over 5 years. This benefit greatly exceeds any known hazards of statin therapy."

>>>  Read this 2012 abstract from the Lancet here.