A healthy lifestyle is still vital if on statins

I HAVE lost track of the number of headlines relating to statins: it is hard to keep up when the advice keeps changing.

Statins lower cholesterol, and they are currently taken by those with a high chance of heart disease and strokes.

Now, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), is proposing that even adults with much lower risks of cardiovascular disease – ten per cent rather than 20 per cent – should be taking them.

This could mean large numbers of elderly people taking a statin. Estimates suggest the number could rise from five million to 12 million.

But for all medicines you have to weigh up the disadvantages and advantages. While preventing cardiovascular disease, statins cause side effects: muscle aches and pains as well as liver problems.

These could be considered worth it if you are at high risk, but less so if you are low-risk. And clinical and costeffectiveness arguments don’t always take into account the quality of life of the patient.

I am cautious about starting any patient on statins.

Far from simply handing out prescriptions, doctors need to strongly promote exercise and the Mediterranean diet to prevent heart disease, and offer smoking-cessation tools and weight advice.

There is a tendency for patients (and doctors) to think that as long as they’re on statins, smoking or a poor diet doesn’t really matter. And it really does.