Sunday, during a New Orleans meeting of the American Heart Association, researchers revealed that statins, which are the mainstay treatment for people with high cholesterol levels, could have beneficial effects for healthy people, too, concerning cardiovascular diseases, namely reducing the risk of having a heart attack.

The study that made scientists conclude statins reduced by almost 50 percent the risk of suffering from a heart attack or a stroke looked at approximately 18,000 people with normal cholesterol levels and also showed that the risk of death occurring from heart disease was decreased by 20 percent due to the drugs.

The findings prompted researchers to state that millions more persons should be given a daily dose of statins in order to prevent the development of cardiovascular conditions.

Nevertheless, the study concentrated on a single drug of this kind called Crestor, which is currently being sold by drug maker AstraZeneca, the manufacturer having been the one to fund the recent research.

Even so, scientists believe that the results don’t only apply to the rosuvastatin drug (marketed as Crestor), deeming the discovery as a class one, with all statins being able to reduce the risk of heart disease in healthy people.

Health experts expect the statins to come to prevent 50,000 heart attacks, strokes and deaths annually, while some critics reckon that treating a much larger number of people with the drugs would cost the United States health-care system over $9 billion a year.

Currently, Crestor is the most expensive statin on the U.S. market, being priced at $3.45 for a daily dose, but the majority of statins usually sell their daily dose for about $1 or less.