Then how do you explain this?

This is not some small drug company financed research - it was done on 20,000 people between the ages of 40 to 80 over a five year period of time.  

Per this five year study on 20,000 people - one third of all heart attacks and strokes in people at high risk can be avoided by using statins.

If your response to that is that - they should be taught to eat and exercise properly - that's a laugh.  Yeah, shut down all the McDonalds too.  People are people.  Statins have been proven to prevent significant quantities of heart attacks and strokes.  Why not save one third of high risk people the drama of heart attack or stroke - to say nothing of the associated medical costs?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2502-cholesterollowering-drugs-slash-he...

Cholesterol-lowering drugs slash heart attacks

• 00:01 05 July 2002
• NewScientist.com news service
• Emma Young

About one third of all heart attacks and strokes in people at high risk can be avoided by using statins to lower blood cholesterol. The benefits are the same, whether a patient is male or female, or classed as having high or low cholesterol levels.

These results are from a major five-year study of 20,000 British people aged 40 to 80 and were first presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in November 2001, and reported in New Scientist. Now full details of the work have been published in The Lancet.

"These findings should tear up the rule-book on statin prescribing," says Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet. "This marks a major conceptual shift in our understanding of the prevention of heart disease."

The study involved people with existing coronary disease, diabetes or other vascular problems that put them at high risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Life saver

Rory Collins at the University of Oxford's Clinical Trials Service Unit, who led the research, says: "Because the study is so big, and on high-risk patients, the results are incredibly definite about the end results of lowering cholesterol in a wide range of people."

Guidelines on prescribing statins, which are routinely given only to people with high cholesterol, should now be changed, says Professor Sir Charles George, medical director of the British Heart Foundation. Irrespective of cholesterol levels, people at high risk of heart attack of stroke should be given the drug, he says.

The researchers estimate that 10,000 lives could be saved in the UK alone each year if all people that could benefit were prescribed a statin.

The study also found that taking anti-oxidant vitamins does not appear to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke or cancer. "We looked at a cocktail of vitamins E, C and beta carotene, and found no effect whatsoever," Collins says.

Journal reference: Lancet (vol 360, p 7)