According to researchers, Crestor, AstraZeneca's powerful cholesterol drug could possibly reduce the risk of dangerous blood clots in the vein by almost 43%, their study confirming yet more benefits from widely used statin drugs.

Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and leader of the study, said: 'It is another benefit of an extraordinary class of drug.' Called venous thrombosis, these clots are '… very common, can be very disabling and occasionally fatal ... This is actually evidence that we can prevent the first one'.

Jupiter, the landmark 17,802-patient study, whose results were released in November, and whose secondary goal was to find a way to reduce the risk of the venous clots, found Crestor dramatically cut deaths, heart attacks and strokes in patients, who had healthy rather than elevated levels of LDL or 'bad' cholesterol, they did have increased levels of the inflammatory marker called C-reactive protein (CRP), often associated with heart disease. The benefits of Crestor, also known as rosuvastatin, were so pronounced that independent safety monitors stopped the trial two years early.

Other data released from the Jupiter trial Sunday, emphasized substantial benefits, as patients saw a drop below target levels of both their bad cholesterol and CRP protein. The study conducted on men and women, average age 66, who would not normally be prescribed statins, who were randomly given either 20-milligrams of Crestor once a day, or a placebo. Thirty-four patients in the Crestor group, developed venous thrombo-embolism, compared to 60 in the placebo group.

Calling it 'pure prevention', researchers say it is the first time a statin like Crestor has demonstrated an ability to prevent such clots in a major clinical trial, without any risk of bleeding, another issue with other anti-clotting medicines.

Venous thrombo-embolism is a clotting of red blood cells in the veins, and can lead to the potentially fatal condition of clots breaking off and lodging in the lungs. There are at least 100,000 pulmonary embolism cases that take place in the United States, each year.

Various anti-coagulant drugs like warfarin are given to patients with a blood clot to prevent others from developing, however, the Jupiter study's data could see physicians adding statins to their treatment regimens, which not only reduce the incidence of heart attacks and strokes, but also reduce the rate of blood clots in the veins.

So does this mean everyone will eventually be on statins to guard their heart health? Doesn't look like it, as Crestor is an expensive drug, as well, it is wrong to say a pill will solve all your problems. People should deal with health issues, not by popping pills, but by exercising and changing their diets.

You can read more about the study, whose first trial will appear in the April issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, with the second in an upcoming issue of The Lancet.