All People Over 40 Should Be Taking Statins

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPTF) has issue a draft recommendation in which it has suggested that adults aged between 40 and 75 who face risk of having heart attack or stroke should take statins.

A government task force on health now recommends adults between the ages of 40 and 75 who are at risk for heart attack or stroke take statins. Therefore, some doctors have questioned the panel’s recommendation whether the side effects are worth it for the patients with lower risk of heart attack and stroke. The USPSTF uses the AHA/ACC method for calculating risk, according to the draft recommendation.

The independent panel added that people with a 10-year risk of heart attack and stroke between 7.5 percent and 10 percent might also benefit from statins, and should discuss the matter with their doctor.

Among the risk factors for cardiovascular disease are high total cholesterol or triglycerides – dyslipidemia, high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking.

They state that certain patients, who are not as at quite as high a risk, still may benefit from taking the drugs – and should weigh up the pros and cons themselves.

Owens also said, “The magnitude of the benefit is different the greater the risk”. “Heart disease risk is a continuum, so the higher your risk, the more likely you will benefit from taking a statin”. Generally, Statins lower cholesterol levels by almost 25% to 35%. These are the factors that the stroke risk calculator combines with sex and ethnicity to calculate the risk of stroke in the next ten years.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has issued a draft recommendation to this effect.

Cholesterol (a type of fat in the blood) builds up and forms a plaque in arteries and boosts the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular problems.

The 2013 guidelines for statin use recommended that doctors consider the drug in people age 40 to 75 whose 10-year-risk is 7.5 per cent or higher.

“Bad lipids do not make one feel badly until the heart attack, heart failure, or stroke occurs”, remarked Dr. Chip Lavie of Cardiac Rehabilitation and Prevention at John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans as mentioned by CBS News.

“There is now not enough research to determine whether screening all average-risk children and adolescents without symptoms leads to better cardiovascular health in adulthood”, said task force Vice Chair David Grossman, M.D., M.P.H., in a news release.(www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org) “In addition, the potential harms of long-term use of cholesterol-lowering medication by children and adolescents are not yet understood”. Those guidelines were controversial because they made millions more Americans eligible for statins compared to older recommendations that focused more on cholesterol levels.

The recommendations leave room for discretion, which some have criticized as being vague and not helpful.

Monday’s task force conclusion was that people at higher risk get more benefit, but the two sets of advice are consistent, said American Heart Association spokesman Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones of Northwestern University.

However, both recommendations can be commented upon until January 25 on the website of USPSTF.