Crestor is one of the most expensive statins, costing about $3.45 a day, but generic statins typically sell for less than $1.
About 120 people would have to take the drugs for two years to prevent one heart attack, stroke or death, Dr. Mark Hlatky of Stanford University wrote in an editorial accompanying the report, which was published online Sunday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Nonetheless, the findings will most likely be widely adopted soon, Gardner said.
"It will be incorporated into practice guidelines after all the nuances are sorted out," he said.
Statins, first introduced in 1987, block the production of cholesterol in the liver. High cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart attacks and stroke because it contributes to the buildup of plaque that blocks arteries, preventing oxygenated blood from reaching the heart and brain.
An estimated 450,000 Americans die of heart disease each year and an additional 150,000 from strokes.
More than 13 million Americans take statins regularly, and worldwide sales total more than $22 billion a year, the bulk of that in the United States.
But doctors have long been mystified by the fact that about half of heart attacks occur in patients with normal cholesterol levels, and researchers have been looking for other important risk factors.
Three years ago, Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and his colleagues studied results from clinical trials in which statins had been used to treat high cholesterol levels and concluded that, in addition to their cholesterol-lowering ability, the drugs also reduced arterial inflammation, which can lead to the buildup of plaque.
The finding was part of a series of studies that showed statins have a number of beneficial effects beyond their ability to reduce cholesterol. Several reports have shown that they also help prevent glaucoma and cataracts and inhibit dementia.
Others suggest that they also moderate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and increase bone density. These benefits may be related to their ability to reduce inflammation.
C-reactive protein, or CRP, has long been associated with inflammation. Very high levels of CRP are associated with arthritis and other autoimmune diseases. But slightly elevated levels -- about a hundredth of the levels seen in arthritis -- have been linked to inflammation in the arteries that causes cardiovascular diseases.
