Statins for all? (BMJ Extract)
An epidemiologist’s call for all healthy adults over 50 to take statins was uncritically reinforced by the media without proper discussion of side effects. A problem for primary care doctors is that even rare side effects become common when millions of low risk patients are treated with statins……………………….As for evidence that high risk patients are deciding not to take statins because of a perceived risk of side e‹ ects, this seems to be based on anecdote, and my own anecdote is also that many patients decline to take statins, saying that the side effects are unacceptable.
The arguments for giving statins to a whole population need to be made equally in forms of absolute risk; we must be fair about potential side effects, including the association with diabetes; and crucially we must also be clear that improving population health should not simply
be made the work of drug companies.