Anacetrapib: The drug trial results

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1009744

A recent trial of an LDL lowering and HDL increasing drug, ie a perfect lipid profile.
Unfortunately 4 times more people died on the drug rather than the placebo.

Interesting parts in the document is the table 4 on page 9

Number of deaths on drug = 4, placebo = 1.

There were many more hospitalizations for the placebo group. Possibly because their lipid profile were not good, so doctors were checking other markers. For the drug lipid profile was perfect so doctors would not have cared checking for the other markers.

The adverse result of the drug could be because of the effect of the lipid profile on Doctors psyche.

Another interesting thing was that Drug related adverse events was nearly same for placebo as well. I don't know what kind of placebo they were using, that would cause an adverse effect.

Apparently the results were considered inconclusive and they are planning to have a bigger study. People are lining up to die on the drug.

The take back from this. A good lipid profile does not mean that you don't have heart problems. A bad lipid profile does not mean you have a heart problem. Essentially lipid profile does not matter for heart disease.

If you do have a good lipid profile your doctor might ignore your heart problems. If you have a bad lipid profile your doctor might prescribe preventive medicines with significant side effects (called statins), even though you have no heart problems.

If you suspect of heart problems get a calcium score, and try to fix that. Don't put too much faith into lipid profile. And diet that changes lipid profile also doesn't matter, essentially it is good to eat butter, even though it might raise your LDL.

Personally it did not happen to me. Mine went down 20 points when I started eating lots of ghee/butter.

Aged Cheeses are known to help in reducing coronary plaque, via a little known vitamin K2, which is also found in ghee/butter.