Expert Advice about Statins Needs Scrutiny
10 Feb 2025
If you are being advised by your doctor to take statins, don’t take the advice lightly. Do your homework. There are many books and hundreds of studies that delve into the details — and details are important. Make sure your are discussing your full set of options with your medical team, and make sure they have done their homework too. For example, one study focused on people over the age of 75, based on industry-sponsored randomized clinical trial data, and published in the BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine found that doctors would need to prescribe statins to 446 patients to prevent a single non-fatal heart attack or stroke. One has to ask if taking statins, knowing their side effects, and with such odds, is a good gamble, especially when there are other options.
