For your health, there’s nothing like too low cholesterol

Lowering cholesterol far beyond the levels recommended by most doctors can substantially reduce heart patients’ risk of suffering or dying of a heart attack, a study has found.

The study’s results, cardiologists say, will greatly change how doctors treat patients with heart disease and will provide the impetus to re-evaluate how low cholesterol levels should be, even for people without heart problems.

The study compared high doses of one of the most powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs, Lipitor, made by Pfizer Inc, with a less potent drug, Pravachol, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, which sponsored the trial. The patients taking Lipitor were significantly less likely to have heart attacks or to require bypass surgery or angioplasty, the study found. Both drugs are statins, a class of medications that blocks a cholesterol-synthesising enzyme and are often prescribed for patients with heart problems. ‘‘This is really a big deal,’’ Dr David Waters, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, says of the findings. ‘‘We have in our hands the power to reduce the risk of heart disease by a lot…It’s very exciting.’’