There's a new study just released that raises questions about popular cholesterol-lowering drugs Vytorin and Zetia.
The report shows that a cheaper, over-the-counter medication may work even better than expensive prescription pills.
Researchers presented the highly anticipated head-to-head Cholesterol drug study results to thousands of doctors at the American Heart Association's annual meeting in Orlando.
And the data show that Niaspan, which is a prescription, long-acting version of Niacin cuts the dangerous plaque in the neck arteries.
While the drug Zetia and Vytorin had no effect on the plaque at all.
In addition, significantly more people on Zetia and Vytorin had heart attacks and strokes than those on Niaspan.
An estimated nine million took Zetia and Vytorin last year, racking more than $4 billion in sales for Merck.
By contrast, only 2.5 million people took Niacin or Niaspan, which is made by Abbot.
This small study is drawing both criticism and praise.
"In the New England Journal of Medicine, editorials that accompany this study, both commentators caution physicians on the basis of the limitations and the size of the studies, not to draw broad, general conclusions about the clinical effectiveness of Zetia" said Ken Frazier, Merck.
"This study was in fact relatively well done, can you pick apart any study, of course you can, were there flaws... there's never been a perfect study. Do we believe the results? Yes, the vast majority of us do believe these results," said Steven Nissen, M.D., Cardiologist.
Merck says it is doing a huge 18,000 patient study to try to specifically measure the heart effects of Zetia and Vytorin, but the results won't be known for at least a few years.
