Statins should be taken for LIFE, study suggests –

One study suggests that statins should be given for life.

Patients who abruptly discontinue cholesterol-lowering drugs risk losing much of the protection they provide to their heart.

Scientists say this is because the main benefits of cheap pills are not seen until late in life.

About 8 million Britons and 32 million Americans take statins every day to reduce their risk of heart complications from hypertension.

However, it is thought that up to half of patients stop taking the drug because of suspected side effects such as muscle aches, digestive problems and headaches.

Dr. “Stopping treatment doesn’t seem like a wise choice unless advised by a doctor,” said lead author Runguo Wu, of Queen Mary University of London.

Statins are a group of drugs that prevent the liver from producing the “bad” cholesterol known as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.

Over time, its buildup can lead to hardened and narrowed arteries and heart disease, one of the leading causes of death in the world.

People are currently prescribed statins if they are diagnosed with the disease or have a family history.

The tablets, which cost at least 20 cents per pill and have proven to be lifesaving, are taken once a day.

Patients who stop taking it may find their cholesterol rises again within a few weeks.

However, many people stop taking them or use them sporadically due to concerns about side effects.

The researchers looked at how their effectiveness decreased when patients stopped taking the drugs.

They used data from 118,000 participants included in international statin studies and half a million participants in the British biobank, a database of medical and genetic data.

They created a mathematical model that calculates the annual risk of heart attack and stroke for each participant.

The experts tried to calculate what would happen if the participants stopped taking their daily dose at age 80 compared to what they would have taken in their lifetime.

They also compared the delay in statin use to five years.

Benefits were measured in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) – extra life years spent in excellent health.

The results, which will be presented Saturday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Barcelona, ​​show that most QALYs develop later in life due to statins.

Patients who stopped taking the drug by the time they reached 80 “knew a lot about the potential benefit.”

People in their fifties with low cardiovascular risk who stop taking the drug at age 80 lose three-quarters of the QALYs they would have had if they continued taking the drug.

And those at high cardiovascular risk and those who stop taking daily statin tablets at age 80 lose a third of the extra health years the drug provides.

Those at low cardiovascular risk and those who delayed taking statins for five years lost only two percent of the drug’s benefits.

However, those at high risk who delayed the onset lost seven percent of the gain.

Dr. “This is because people at high cardiovascular risk start to see benefits early on and have more to lose by delaying statin therapy than low risk people,” Wu said.

He urged people in their forties who are at high risk of developing cardiovascular disease, and people of all ages with pre-existing heart disease, to take statins immediately.

Many doctors say the possible side effects of statins are exaggerated, and advocates, including health watchdog NICE, say the pills should be prescribed more widely to prevent thousands of premature deaths.

However, others are concerned about the potential for long-term damage.

The drugs have been associated with diabetes and memory loss.

And the scores are troubled by what they describe as the “overmedicalization” of middle age, when statins are given “just in case”, when patients develop heart problems later in life.