And, from today's (Nov 18th) New York Times:
"
Risk Calculator for Cholesterol Appears Flawed"
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/he...flawed.html?hp
... And, what they point out is exactly my experience with it: It calculated my risk at about 50% greater than any other risk calculator I had ever used...
But what the article does NOT address are the questions:
-- Why would you prescribe a cholesterol lowering medication for somebody with high blood pressure?
-- Why would you prescribe a cholesterol lowering medication for somebody who's only problem is old age?
Even if the calculator was excellent at predicting risk, that doesn't mean that every risk factor can be cured with a statin!
From the article:
"
Some doctors who tested the calculator with hypothetical patients wondered if they should trust the results.Dr. Nissen entered the figures for a 60-year-old African-American man with no risk factors — total cholesterol of 150, HDL (the good cholesterol) of 45, systolic blood pressure of 125 — who was not a diabetic or a smoker. He ended up with a 10-year risk of 7.5 percent, meaning he should be taking cholesterol-lowering statins despite being in a seemingly low-risk group.
Dr. Nissen also calculated the figures for a healthy white man, age 60, and also got a risk factor of 7.5 percent.
“Something is terribly wrong,” Dr. Nissen said. Using the calculator’s results, he said, “your average healthy Joe gets treated, virtually every African-American man over 65 gets treated.”