mamapat this knee jerk reaction to prescribe statins is the current band wagon drug. Before that it was antibiotics. Antibiotics are essential and life saving in their place, but doctors, believing they were the answer to everything began prescribing them for every known ill from a bruised knees to viral infections and this has led to dangerous infections becoming antibiotic resistant and the existence of serious illnesses that antibiotics can no longer treat. Doctors are now very they are very cautious about when they prescribe antibiotics.
I think the same is happening to statins. Yes, there is serious case for them where people have had hear attacks or are susceptible to heart problems, but whether they are the miracle drug that will resolve all heart problems if only people would take them I very much doubt.
My blood cholesterol is around 7.5. And I was very willing to take them to bring my count to the approved 5.0. However, warned by a post on Gransnet, I asked my GP how much reducing my cholesterol to 5.0, the approved score would reduce the risk of me having a heart attack, stroke etc.
She calculated that not taking statins, my chances of having a stroke etc in the next 10 years was 17.5, pretty low considering I am 75 and average female life expectancy is around 83. If I took statins it would fall to 14.8.
In other words taking statins would reduce my life expectancy by less than 3% and, even if I do have a heart attack/stroke, how is anyone going to prove it was one of the three caused by my high cholestrol, rather than the 15 I still remain liable to statins or no statins.
So ask your GP to work out the probability of you having heart attacks/strokes if you take statins and if you don't. Then study the figures to see how much difference taking them will have on your chances of heart attacks etc against not taking them and then make your decision
My GP was quite taken aback when she realised how little difference taking statins would have on my chances of heart attacks etc.
