(FORTUNE Magazine) – Will one statin a day keep the doctor away? That's the question Americans and their doctors are asking as medical research suggests the drugs do far more than lower cholesterol. The buzz started in June when University of Michigan researchers found that statins may help prevent various types of cancer, a conclusion supported by separate research at the University of California and the Oregon Health Sciences Center. Also in June, another study, released at London's University College, showed that diabetics who took cholesterol-lowering drugs reduced their risk of stroke by half, while cutting heart attacks and other cardiovascular events by more than a third. In addition, ongoing early research in the pharmaceutical industry is delving into the possibility of using statins to treat or prevent other ailments like osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer's. Then in mid-July the National Institutes of Health issued new, lower recommendations for target cholesterol levels, making almost ten million new patients eligible for the drug. Drugmakers are even lobbying for statins to be sold over the counter.

All this should mean that growth in prescriptions for drugs like Merck's Zocor, AstraZeneca's Crestor, and Pfizer's Lipitor, which have slowed in recent years, will pick up again. Already statins outsell all other medicine groups, like antidepressants and antiulcerants. Pfizer's Lipitor, for instance, is the world's bestselling drug, with revenues of $10.3 billion last year. But sales growth, which hit 18% in 2000, has slowed to 10% since, a fact that troubles not only Big Pharma marketers but doctors as well. "There are millions who could benefit who currently aren't receiving these drugs," says Dr. Antonio Gotto, dean of Cornell University's Weill Medical College. Gotto stresses that anyone at risk for cardiovascular disease should be on a statin. Those risk factors include obesity, sedentary lifestyle, diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, and smoking. For doctors to see statins as more than simply cholesterol-lowering pills, however, more studies involving greater numbers of patients will have to be performed. Though he's encouraged by recent data, even Gotto stops short of recommending, as some cardiologists have, that all Americans over the age of 55 pop a daily statin. "In the future we could have enough information to recommend that everyone over a certain age take a statin, but we're not at that place yet," he says.

In the meantime, Pfizer and other companies are urging the FDA to make statins more broadly available. They want the drugs to be sold without a prescription. It's not such a far-fetched idea. Recently the British government was so overwhelmed by data supporting Zocor's extended healing properties that it approved the drug for sale over the counter, starting July 1. And within a year or two, statins could very likely wind up on pharmacy shelves here--right next to the aspirin. --John Simons