"When we take drugs that artificially improve our test results (cholesterol, trigs, glucose)..."

Madisongrrl, I think that this is an excellent point.

Clinical trials which are based on test results rely on what are called "surrogate outcomes". Pharmaceutical companies often use them because they are relatively cheap and quick but they can often be misleading.

The contrast is with a clinical trial which assesses "real-life outcomes", posing the question "Does this drug lead to reduced morbidity/mortality compared to control/placebo?"

Real-life outcome trials take longer and are more expensive. Personally I would never take a drug whose efficacy has not been supported by a well-designed real-life outcome clinical trial.