Do you need to take another look at your cholesterol test? A recent study, called JUPITER, showed that giving a cholesterol-lowering statin to older people with normal LDL (less than 130 mg/dl) cut their risk of heart attack and stroke in half. The trial was aimed at determining the importance of lowering C-reactive protein, or CRP, in men and women.

Does this mean that what has typically been accepted as “normal” LDL results from cholesterol tests is wrong? Current guidelines recommend that doctors prescribe a statin for anyone whose LDL is 100 mg/dl or higher. It will be interesting to see if this leads to a re-evaluation of how cholesterol tests are evaluated.