Trial clouds use of niacin with a statin

Aiming high is usually a good strategy for achieving a goal... except when it backfires. That's what happened with a large clinical trial dubbed AIM-HIGH. It was suddenly stopped more than a year ahead of schedule, casting a cloud over the use of niacin, a safe, effective medication with a proven track record for raising levels of protective high-density lipoprotein (HDL).

AIM-HIGH was designed to gauge whether adding a prescription form of niacin (Niaspan) to a cholesterol-lowering statin makes sense for people with low HDL. This combination had been tested in earlier trials, all of which showed a benefit. The big difference in AIM-HIGH was the very low target for low-density lipoprotein (LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol): between 40 and 80 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL).