Cowabunga
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Statins—should we adjust the risk:benefit ratio?
The prevailing opinion that statins are an elixir for long life was challenged with the recent publication of the Cochrane review, Statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. After analysing 16 trial arms with 34 272 participants, the authors found no evidence of harm, and...
www.thelancet.com
The risks and benefits copied for educational purpose from the above second link. I've highlighted in bold the benefits although at the end it also lists an apparent small increased risk of diabetes. Basically its your body and if you think that the risks of adverse cardiac events are low or that the risks associated with taking statins are too high for you, do what you think best for yourself.
Diabetes, prediabetes and metabolic syndrome are associated with a two‐ to threefold increased risk for cardiovascular disease and all‐cause mortality7. In a meta‐analysis of the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists Collaboration involving 169,138 individuals from 26 randomized studies which recruited at least 1,000 patients with at least 2 years' treatment duration, the authors concluded that for every 1 mmol/L reduction in low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C), there was a 22% reduction in all vascular events and 10% in all‐cause mortality, mainly as a result of coronary heart disease and other cardiac causes. These clinical benefits remained consistent in all subgroup analyses stratified by age, sex, obesity, presence and types of diabetes, concomitant cardiovascular risk factors, and history of prior cardiovascular or renal events3.
The latest Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: An Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin trial (JUPITER) study4 recruited subjects without diabetes and LDL‐C <3.3 mmol/L with no prior history of cardiovascular disease, but high levels of high‐sensitivity C‐reactive protein > 2.0 mmol/L. After 1.9 years, the trial was stopped prematurely because of a 44% reduction in the primary cardiovascular end‐point in the rosuvastatin group compared with the placebo group, although there was a higher incidence of physician‐reported diabetes in the rosuvastatin group. In a subsequent analysis involving 13 statin trials (which included JUPITER) with 91,140 participants, of whom 4,278 developed diabetes during a mean of 4 years, statin therapy was associated with a 9% increased risk for incident diabetes, which was not influenced by the degree of LDL‐C lowering