Half of people lack the benefits of statins

Rigid medications like Lipitor and Crestor significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, have shown rigorous studies. But a "real world" analysis published in Heart suggests that, in practice, about half of patients do not benefit.

British researchers studied 165,411 cardiovascular disease free patients who started statin therapy between 1990 and 2016. They measured their LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels before the start of the study and again after 24 months, then followed for an average of six years. .

Just over half of the patients presented what the researchers described as a "suboptimal" response to treatment, namely a decrease in LDL of less than 40%. The risk of death from cardiovascular disease was 25% higher in these individuals than in those with optimal response, even after adjustment for baseline LDL, age, body mass index, use of tobacco, alcohol, family history of the disease and other health characteristics.

Lead author Stephen F. Weng, a researcher at the University of Nottingham, suggested that although some people may be genetically unresponsive to statins, the main problem is that people stop taking their medications because side effects or because they heard something negative. about them in the media.

"Reducing cholesterol is absolutely protective," he said. "And statins are unquestionably effective at doing it. We do not want a situation where more than half of the population will not benefit. "