Laffen and colleagues recently published the results of their SPORT randomised controlled trial in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 190 patients with no prior evidence of atherosclerotic heart disease and LDL cholesterol of 1.8-4.9 mmol/L were randomly assigned to rosuvastatin 5mg, placebo, fish oil, cinnamon, garlic, turmeric, plant sterols or red yeast rice. The primary endpoint was LDL-C percentage change from baseline after 28 days for rosuvastatin vs placebo, then vs each supplement in a prespecified order. 

Rosuvastatin reduced LDL-C by 35.2% when compared to placebo whilst for all the supplements there was no significant decrease in LDL-C vs placebo. Rates of adverse events were similar across all groups. 

Unfortunately, the full text is not open access. One might argue that the duration of the trial was rather short, but it is useful to have supplements included in a RCT as many patients will choose to take multiple supplements rather than statins. 

Read the abstract here.