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.

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