TonyCinTX

Merck and Schering-Plough Make the Bad News About Vytorin Even Worse

As a statistician, I would take this result, along with the results of Dr. Krumholz on hormone therapy, as clear and convincing evidence that the correlation between higher LDL and atherosclerosis does NOT imply causation!

To go further than the author, I would suspect the lowering of LDL by statins is a result of effect on some underlying and unidentified factor in atherosclerosis while the higher LDL itself is just an indicator of this underlying factor. If true, reducing LDL means nothing and the standard wisdom that high LDL causes atherosclerosis is simply false. Mask the indicator all you want, it doesn't address the root cause. And to whatever extent statins DO address the root cause, they incidentally cause a reduction in the LDL that indicates the severity of that root cause. Stop chasing the shadow of the problem and figure out what is casting the shadow.