By Lewis Krauskopf

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) - Patients taking AstraZeneca Plc's Crestor, who saw both their bad cholesterol and a protein tied to arterial inflammation reduced to very low levels, dramatically cut their risk of heart attack, stroke and death, researchers said on Sunday.

The results come from the Jupiter study, which originally found that Crestor significantly cut such cardiovascular events in patients with healthy cholesterol levels, but who had high amounts of the protein, known as C-reactive protein (CRP).

Study subjects who reached aggressive targets of bad LDL cholesterol below 70 and CRP levels below 1 had a whopping 80 percent lower risk of suffering serious heart problems or death, according to the latest data, released at the American College of Cardiology scientific meeting in Orlando.

Those whose CRP fell below 2 along with an LDL below 70 saw a 65 percent decrease compared with a 36 percent reduction for those who reached only one of the targets or neither.

"When patients were lucky enough to get both an LDL reduction and a CRP reduction, they did much better than if they got neither or only one," said Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the Jupiter trial.

The initial Jupiter results shined a bright light on C-reactive protein and its connection to serious heart risks.

"From where I sit, it reinforces the importance of thinking about inflammation as well as cholesterol in how we diagnose as well as manage atherosclerosis," Ridker said. "You are substantially better off getting to both targets than getting to just LDL alone."

In the study, more than 15,000 patients in the Jupiter trial were randomized to either 20 milligrams of Crestor, also known as rosuvastatin, or a placebo. Enrolled patients had an LDL of less than 130, which meant that they did not qualify for statin therapy under current guidelines.

(Additional reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing Bernard Orr)

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