Column: Are statins for everyone?

Pretty soon, it might well make more sense to ask who isn’t on statins, rather than who is.

More than three million people are estimated to take these cholesterol-lowering pills – mainly to help reduce the risk of heart disease – and recent plans to offer everyone over 40 a cardiac risk assessment could more than double the figure. Statins can be bought over the counter, and the NHS spends £500m a year on them. That makes them the biggest single item on the health service’s shopping list.

The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post comments below

Comments are closed.