Millions of healthy people with no obvious sign of illness could be put on cholesterol-lowering drugs, Britain’s heart “tsar” has signalled, as new research showed that they cut the chance of heart attack by almost a half.
Around one in four adults aged over 40 is to be prescribed statins on the NHS under current plans. But a wide-scale study, published yesterday, has found that the drugs are even more effective than previously thought in people who appear healthy.
There have been calls for everyone over the age of 50 to be given the drugs — which consist of a daily pill costing as little as 34p a month — to lower the risk of a heart attack, but this is controversial as many see it as needlessly “medicalising” healthy people.
There are few serious side-effects with statins, but patients do complain of muscle aches and fatigue.
Source: Daily Telegraph
No comments:
Post a Comment