DALLAS, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- A Texas researcher has found raising the amount of the powerful cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor offers little or no additional benefit for patients.
The study, by James A. de Lemos of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, is being published in the Sept. 15 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Zocor's maker, Merck, paid for the study.
The study sought to determine if high doses of Zocor worked better than low ones at preventing death and cardiovascular complications in people who had suffered heart attacks.
One group of 2,265 patients was assigned at random to aggressive treatment, meaning 40 milligrams of Zocor a day for 30 days and then 80 milligrams a day. A second group of 2,232 patients took placebos for four months and then 20 milligrams of Zocor a day. All participants were followed for six months to two years.
The difference between the groups never became large enough to be statistically significant, and nine patients in the high-dose group suffered from myopathy.
