STATIN OR NOT?
ANCHOR LEAD: UNTIL GUIDELINES ARE MODIFIED, WHO SHOULD CONSIDER STATINS? ELIZABETH TRACEY REPORTS
Using data from a very large cardiovascular disease study known as Jupiter, along with national data from an ongoing study called NHANES, Erin Michos, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, says many more people might benefit from statin therapy than previously thought.
MICHOS: What I am doing now is if I have an older patient, a man over the age of fifty, a woman over the age of sixty, if they do not currently meet indications for statins I might use C-reactive protein as a tie-breaker. If it was elevated I might have a discussion with them about consideration of statin. I would give all of my patients of course a six month trial of lifestyle changes. We know that exercise and weight loss both lower CRP so if the CRP was elevated I would first recommend the lifestyle changes. :29
Michos says for those who don’t respond to exercise, diet and weight loss, a statin may well prove the most efficacious way to reduce cardiovascular disease risk. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.
