Does lowering LDL cholesterol prevent heart attacks and strokes?

• Reducing or stopping the formation of new cholesterol plaques on the artery walls;
• Reducing existing cholesterol plaques on the artery walls;
• Widening narrowed arteries;
• Preventing the rupture of cholesterol plaques, which initiates blood clot formation;
• Decreasing the risk of heart attacks; and
• Decreasing the risk of strokes. The same measures that retard atherosclerosis in coronary arteries also benefit the carotid and cerebral arteries (arteries that deliver blood to the brain).