[ad_1]
People with narrow arteries taking statins can halve their risk of heart attack or stroke.
But new research has shown that only 6% of these patients take the drug as recommended by a doctor.
The researchers decided to determine: if statins are so effective, why are not so many people taking them?
The answers were not easy to find.
The recent study included 5,468 people diagnosed with cardiovascular disease for the first time between 1999 and 2013. All had received a cholesterol lowering statin prescription in the first year after diagnosis.
The researchers sought to know if they were taking their medications and how many major adverse clinical events such as strokes and heart attacks had been recorded over the next five years.
"We conducted this study because statins are very important for preventing recurrence or death in patients with cardiovascular disease. Adherence has always been a problem for patients taking this medication, "Healthline Heidi May, PhD, a senior investigator and cardiovascular epidemiologist at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, told Healthline.
High cholesterol in your blood increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Statins block a substance that your body needs to make cholesterol, reducing the amount of fluid circulating in your body.
May and her team found that patients who took their statins as prescribed at least 80% of the time reduced their risk of having a heart attack or stroke by almost 50%.
"People do worse when they do not take their medicine," she said. "The more patients adhered to their statin therapy, the better. So, if you want to increase your chances of not having another cardiovascular event, then taking the drug is really important and can help you. "
The study also found that while 25% of people never filled their prescriptions for statins, a similar number of people did not bother to fill the second.
"We really do not know why people did not take them, mainly because we had no contact with patients, we did not talk to them," said May. "But we do not think the cost is really a problem because they all had health insurance and the statins are pretty cheap – I think it's $ 5 or $ 10 for a three-month supply."
No drug causes potential side effects, but the most common statin is relatively minor compared to the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
"Myopathy, which is muscle weakness, is the most commonly reported complaint and severe myopathy (rhabdomyolysis) occurs in only about 1 in 10,000 patients," Dr. Victoria Shin, a cardiologist at Torrance Memorial Medical, told Healthline. Center in California.
In the first scientific report of the American Heart Association (AHA) specifically examining health problems badociated with the use of statins, the AHA states that, in double-blind randomized controlled trials, " there is little or no difference in the incidence of muscle symptoms between statin and placebo. "
However, a recent study has shown that statins can increase the risk of developing diabetes.
The researchers found that the use of statins was badociated with a 9 to 13% increase in the risk of recent onset diabetes.
They concluded that users of statins, especially those with prediabetes or who are at high risk, should be closely monitored when they use these drugs.
"Statins of moderate and high intensity increase the relative risk of diagnosed diabetes by about 10 and 20%, respectively. This will affect about one in 100 statin users for five years of using statins. It is not known if this effect is reversible, "said Shin.
Statins are the "gold standard" for treating hypercholesterolemia.
It is a powerful clbad of drugs that save the lives of people with or at high risk of heart attack or stroke.
May pointed out that statins are the only cholesterol-lowering drugs that have been shown to significantly and reliably reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes, and deaths in high-risk patients.
In a 2016 article, the researchers put the side effects of statins into perspective.
The authors wrote: "[E]Multiple claims about the side effects of statin therapy may explain its underuse in people at increased risk for cardiovascular events. Because, while the rare cases of myopathy [muscle pain] and all the muscle symptoms attributed to statin therapy usually disappear soon after stopping treatment. Heart attacks or strokes that may occur with unnecessary stopping of statin therapy can be devastating. "
"Statins are very safe for the majority of patients," said Shin. "And the benefits outweigh the risks in patients with known cardiovascular disease, as well as those with high cholesterol, as primary prevention of cardiovascular disease."
A recent study found that only 6% of prescription statins took them.
The researchers do not know why.
Statins cause side effects, most often muscle weakness, although it affects a very small percentage of people who take them.
However, a recent study found a moderately increased risk of diabetes.
Experts say the benefits of statins far outweigh the risks. Currently, statins are the only drug that has been proven to save the lives of people with or at high risk of heart attack or stroke.
Source link
