Lipid-Lowering Therapy

Preventive cardiology has come a long way since the 1984 landmark publication of the Lipid Research Clinics–Coronary Primary Prevention Trial (LRC-CPPT). Despite considerable evidence supporting the lipid hypothesis of atherogenesis, there was skepticism about whether cholesterol-lowering drug treatment would be beneficial. Robert Levy, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the time of the LRC-CPPT trial, wrote an editorial in 1985 with a title that is still relevant today—“Cholesterol and Cardiovascular Disease: No Longer Whether, But Rather When, in Whom, and How?”