Heart Experts Say Early End To Key Study On Benefits of Niacin, a B Vitamin, in Keeping Arteries open Was Premature

Heart experts at Johns Hopkins are calling premature the early halt of a study by researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Washington Hospital Center on the benefits of combining extended-release niacin, a B vitamin, with cholesterol-lowering statin medications to prevent blood vessel narrowing.  Cardiovascular atherosclerosis, as it is also known, is believed responsible for one in three deaths in the United States each year.

The study, called HDL and LDL Treatment Strategies, or HALTS, involved 363 men and women, and was shut down after only 208 study participants had completed the full treatment timeline of 14 months.  Results showed that prescribed niacin worked better in combination with a statin than another double-cholesterol-lowering drug combo, ezetimibe and a statin, in reducing carotid arterial wall thickness in the neck – the measure used as a gauge of atherosclerosis.  An average wall reduction of 0.014 of a millimeter with niacin was observed.  By contrast, the ezetimibe group showed no significant change.

Study participants, of whom nearly half were taking niacin and the rest were taking ezetimibe, were at high risk of heart disease or already had it, with average bad LDL blood-cholesterol levels of 82 milligrams per deciliter. All had already been prescribed statin therapy.

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