“Only 1.8 percent of the subjects who took a placebo had a major cardiovascular problem during the study period. Among statin users, 0.9 percent did. In other words, the absolute risk of a serious cardiovascular problem (as opposed to the relative risk) was reduced by less than one percentage point.

“Absolute differences in risk are more clinically important than relative reductions in risk in deciding whether to recommend drug therapy,” The New England Journal of Medicine noted in an editorial accompanying a report on the study.

An important indicator of the usefulness of a drug is the “number needed to treat,” a measure of how many people needed to take a pill for just one person to be helped. There is disagreement about what Jupiter showed. The New England Journal editorial concluded that treating 120 people for about two years would help one person. The study authors, using different criteria, came up with a figure of 95.

Some researchers think the number is actually much lower. Extrapolating the data to five years, the study’s authors concluded that just 25 healthy people would need to take a statin to prevent one serious heart problem.”