Unfortunately, too many people focus on the exaggerated, small risks associated with these life-saving drugs. Only 10 percent declined statins, with most citing side effects as their main concern.ĭespite these prolonged and often misguided debates, we know the benefits of taking a statin are enormous and largely invisible for people at high risk for heart disease. You don’t see the benefit because it’s the lack of something terrible – such as a heart attack or stroke. A total of 1,511 patients were not receiving statin therapy despite meeting eligibility requirements, and 59 percent of those people said they didn’t take the medication because it was never offered to them. In the 2019 study conducted at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, researchers surveyed 5,693 people from the Patient and Provider Assessment of Lipid Management Registry. (It should be noted that doctors in Europe prescribe statins based on different parameters than doctors in the United States.) In September 2016, an article and editorial in The Lancet questioned the BMJ’s claims and accused the journal of causing “measurable harm to public health.” The BMJ responded by asking England’s chief medical officer to create an independent review of the evidence for statins. The controversy in the United Kingdom started in 2013 when the British Medical Journal (BMJ) claimed statins were being overprescribed to people with low risk of heart disease, and that the drugs’ side effects were worse than previously thought. How common and serious are the drugs’ side effects?.So what’s the debate? The controversy mainly focuses on two topics: I don’t think anyone doubts statins save lives. That’s an amazing figure considering statins are the “gold standard” when it comes to treating high cholesterol, which we explained in our February 2016 article "10 truths about statins and high cholesterol."ĭata from the 2008 JUPITER Trial suggest a 54 percent heart attack risk reduction and a 48 percent stroke risk reduction in people at risk for heart disease who used statins as preventive medicine. A majority of those people cited the primary reason as their physicians never offered it. Nearly three years later, controversy continues to swirl around this often misunderstood but highly effective class of medication.Ī study published in the March 2019 Journal of the American Heart Association reported that more than half of patients eligible for statins do not receive them. British tabloid the Daily Mail called it the “statins war.” Two British medical journals had accused each other of putting the public’s health in danger. This article, originally published in 2016, was updated April 3, 2019.Ī long-simmering medical debate over a class of drugs used to lower cholesterol burst into the media spotlight across the pond in September 2016.
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