Originally Posted by mrfreddy
yes, statins do lower cholesterol. but to what end? do they benefit from said cholesterol lowering? is the benefit worth the expense and the risk?
here's an interesting take on the way the pill pushers distort the evidence to exagerate the benefits of statins, from slate a week or so ago, written by a cardiologist, btw:
http://www.slate.com/id/2150354/?nav=tap3
Sounds like a reasonable risk-reward ratio to me...I'd rather take something that reduced my chances of a heart attack by 2.2% than play the odds that I'm going to be one of the 97.8% who wouldn't benefit. My father died from a heart attack at age 47, so I'm rather cautious when it comes to cardiac risk factors.
BTW - something the slate article doesn't address is the cost-benefit ratio. Treating 100 people to prevent 2 heart attacks is likely to be a very good deal if you compare the costs of the drug treatments to the medical costs involved with treating two heart attacks.