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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Crouse and colleagues¹ report an impressive reduction in stroke incidence in the active treatment group of randomized controlled trials of reductase inhibitor monotherapy. This analysis, containing several large trials of therapies that led to substantial reductions in levels of circulating cholesterol, represents an advance on previous meta-analyses of cholesterol reduction and stroke risk.^2-3 The first meta-analysis² found an increase in stroke risk consequent on treatment, although it suffered from serious methodological weaknesses.⁴ The second meta-analysis³ found no effect of cholesterol reduction on stroke risk, although it was carried out before reports of the large reductase inhibitor trials.

Crouse and colleagues state:

there are no data, to our knowledge, on lowering the levels of cholesterol in a uniquely high-risk group that is prone to having strokes. A clinical trial of lowering the levels of cholesterol in patients with hypercholesterolemia and previous atherothrombotic stroke (secondary stroke prevention) would be of great interest.