Q&A With Heart Experts: In this series, heart specialists answer common questions about statins and heart health.
How do I know if a statin is right for me?
Health care teams use
tools to estimate your risk of having a cardiovascular event in the next 10
years as well as 30 years to help guide decisions about treatment. The PREVENT
tool is a new evidence-based prediction tool developed using data from 6.5
million U.S. adults to estimate cardiovascular risk.
Depending on your
estimated risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD)
based on the PREVENT calculator, you might benefit from statin therapy. Other
tools that your care team may use include the Pooled Cohort Equation (PCE) and
SCORE2. Your risk score is a starting risk estimate. Your health care team will
also consider other health conditions, or risk enhancers, to help make
decisions about treatment. In some cases, a coronary artery scan may help guide
treatment as well.
Are statins overprescribed?
Statins aren’t
overprescribed. In fact, studies show that up to 44% of patients who could
benefit from statins are not taking them – often due to fear of
side effects (Masson et al 2021). But skipping statins in certain patients can
leave them at a higher risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Key Points
- High cholesterol does not necessarily mean you need a statin medication. All people benefit from lifestyle optimization with diet and exercise, but some people who are higher risk are more likely to benefit from the addition of a medication.
- More accurate assessment tools, like the PREVENT calculator, are less likely to overestimate risk and therefore, less likely to cause an “overprescribing” of statin medications.
- If you have high cholesterol, discuss your personal risk of having a cardiovascular event with your clinician.
Read More: Q&A With Heart Experts: Statins