NEW DELHI - Although clinical studies have suggested that the cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins could benefit people who are not already ill with cardiovascular disease, this assumption may have been premature - according to the author of a new Cochrane systematic review of the effects of statins. Shah Ebrahim explains to Peter Goodwin how many of the drugs-industry sponsored trials showing statin benefits have shortcomings, and that the cautious advice is to reserve statin therapy for patients who already have heart disease and those at risk of having a heart attack since the side effects of very widespread use of these drugs among healthy low-risk people are not yet fully known.