{
  "id": 18009812,
  "title": "Risk of cardiovascular events and mortality associated with LDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels after statin initiation for primary prevention: A multiregional cohort study",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/03/risk-of-cardiovascular-events-and-mortality-associated-with-ldl-and",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-11-03T14:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PLOS Medicine",
    "slug": "plos-medicine",
    "url": "https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1005012"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Background: A study examining the impact of statin initiation on cholesterol levels and cardiovascular outcomes in primary prevention has been conducted using electronic healthcare databases from Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Researchers analyzed data from 185,237 patients who began taking statins between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2012, and did not have atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, heart failure, or chronic kidney disease.\n\nMethods and Findings: The study focused on associations between low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and non-high-density lipoprotein (non-HDL) cholesterol levels measured within two years of statin initiation and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) or all-cause mortality. Multivariable Cox regression was used to adjust for various factors including age, sex, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, obesity, smoking, alcohol misuse, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, severe mental illness, antihypertensive drugs, antidiabetic drugs, antiplatelet drugs, and anticoagulant drugs. Results were pooled using random-effects meta-analysis.\n\nAt two years post-initiation, lower LDL cholesterol levels were associated with a reduction in MACE, while limited evidence suggested an increase in all-cause mortality at very low cholesterol concentrations after adjusting for confounding factors. The study indicates that achieving guideline-recommended non-HDL cholesterol levels of at least a certain threshold could potentially lead to further reductions in cardiovascular events.",
  "summary": "by Joseph Edgar Blais, Ralph Kwame Akyea, William Harrison, Amy Hai Yan Chan, Wenfang Zhong, Stephen Franklin Weng, Kebede Abera Beyene, Wallis C. Y. Lau, Kenneth K. C. Man, Nadeem Qureshi, Esther Wai Yin Chan, Ian Chi Kei Wong, Jeff Harrison Background The cardiovascular and mortality benefits of achieving guideline-recommended concentrations of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and non-high-density…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}