People who take cholesterol-lowering drugs are protected from heart disease and premature death years after they stop taking them, a major study has shown.

New research into statins – the world’s biggest-selling medication – offers dramatic evidence of their long-lasting ability to halt and even reverse the progression of heart disease.

The study, involving 6,500 men, found that those who took statins were still showing benefits of the drugs ten years after they had finished taking them. The chances of suffering a fatal heart attack over the period dropped by more than 25 per cent, the scientists found, while there was no evidence of unexpected side-effects.

This remarkable result will increase pressure on GPs to prescribe statins to an even greater number of middle-aged people with raised cholesterol levels.

Professor Stuart Cobbe, of the University of Glasgow, the leading cardiologist on the study, said that he had been extremely surprised. “The benefit appeared to extend to at least ten years after the original trial,” he said.

The findings do not suggest that people on statins should give up; rather it is better to continue taking them. But even those who do give up continue to enjoy a benefit, Professor Cobbe said.

The results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, come three months after a government adviser suggested statins should be offered to all men over 50 and women over 60 as an effective “shortcut” to prevent heart disease.

Statins are currently taken daily by an estimated three million Britons to tackle high chloresterol. Heart disease is Britain’s biggest killer, accounting for one in three deaths. The annual cost to the economy is about £26 billion a year, the bulk of which is treatment costs.

Professor Chris Packard, a co-author of the study, said: “The impact of the statin treatment appeared to persist long after the active phase of the trial. This suggests that the drugs have lasting beneficial effects on the artery wall, possibly by stabilising plaques that might be about to rupture and cause an heart attack.” Breakaway plaques can cause attacks by blocking the blood vessels and starving the heart of blood. Statins appear to stabi-lise the lining of the blood vessels, as well as damping down inflammation.

The original trial, the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (Woscops), was launched between 1989 and 1991. More than 6,500 men aged between 45 and 64 who had not had a heart attack but had elevated cholesterol levels were recruited and divided into two groups. Half were given pravastatin and the other half a placebo. They were followed up for five years, until May 1995. The results showed that the risks of death from heart disease, or of suffering a heart attack, were significantly reduced in the statin users.

The new study follows up the same men for another ten years. It compares heart attack and death rates in the original statin group against the original placebo group. Since the trial, both groups have changed. The statin group have tended to give up taking the tablets, while many of those in the placebo group have started to take them.

No account was taken of these changes, and a simple comparison was made of the 15-year experience of the original statin group against the original placbo group.

Professor Ian Ford, lead author of the study, said: “Remarkably, five years of treatment with a statin resulted in 27 per cent fewer nonfatal heart attacks or deaths due to heart disease over the period of 15 years. There was a significant 12 per cent reduction in deaths over the entire period, with deaths due to heart disease reduced by 22 per cent.”

The gap between the groups narrowed after the trial ended, and their use of statins tended to converge. But up to the end of the 15-year period, the original statin group did better than the original placebo group, showing a persistence of the effect.

Professor Ford said: “The results of the follow-up provide strong support for the safety of five years of statin use.

“When fatal and nonfatal heart disease events were studied it was found that, despite the fact that most of the participants were not treated with a statin after the first five years of the trial, there was evidence of the group originally receiving the statin continuing to be at lower risk of having a heart disease event.”

Statin prescriptions have risen by 150 per cent in England in the past five years. The trial raises the question of whether they should be given to an even wider group, including younger people in whom heart disease has yet to get a start.

'Three years on statins and no plans to stop'

Jack Gordon, from Edinburgh, has been taking statins since he suffered what felt like a heart attack.

Mr Gordon, 57, was active and had a healthy lifestyle, spending a lot of time hill-walking, smoking only socially and eating what he felt was a healthy diet. But one morning he woke up with a pain in his stomach that got worse during the day.

When he phoned the emergency number, he was asked if the pains were also in his neck and wrist, and was told that he may have had a heart attack.

He was put on statins immediately and his cholesterol level fell from 5 mmol per litre to 3.5. Unlike many people prescribed statins, he is still taking them three years later and has no plan to stop.

He has also given up smoking and focused harder on what he eats. But with no further trouble from his heart he has returned to hill-walking.

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