Guidelines on who is eligible for statins are being pushed to new levels after an international trial funded by a drug company found benefits in "healthy" adults.

The study of 17,800 men and women with normal cholesterol levels found rosuvastatin cut deaths from heart attacks and strokes.

Currently statins are offered to people with a moderate to high risk of a cardiovascular "event".

The results are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The patients in the trial, funded by AstraZeneca, had cholesterol levels below those usually indicating a need for treatment and had no other signs of heart disease.

The obvious bias of such a study concerns many health experts who claim the data is fradulent and simply a way for pharmaceutical companies to sell more drugs to a greater percentage of the population.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: "The findings raise questions about who should receive treatment to prevent a heart attack, how aggressively they should be treated and with which drug.

However, Professor Weissberg added that further studies were needed to determine if measuring C-reactive protein was the right way to identify people likely to gain most from treatment.

Dr Alan McDougall, from AstraZeneca, said there was "no question" the trial would raise some important issues about statin use but that they would recommend doctors still follow existing guidance.