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Lowering cholesterol in chronic kidney disease The Study of Heart and Renal Protection (SHARP) concluded that around a quarter of all heart attacks, strokes, and operations to open blocked arteries could be avoided in people with chronic kidney disease by using the combination of ezetimibe and simvastatin to lower blood cholesterol levels. The SHARP study involved almost 9,500 volunteers aged 40 or over with chronic kidney disease recruited from 380 hospitals in 18 countries. Volunteers were randomly allocated to take either cholesterol-lowering therapy with a tablet containing ezetimibe 10mg daily and simvastatin 20mg daily, or matching dummy "placebo" tablets for an average of 5 years.