The gap between recommendations and who is actually taking medicines to lower cardiovascular disease risk is huge, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes, remains the number one cause of death in the United States, yet many people who should be taking medicines to lower their risk by lowering cholesterol aren’t. That’s according to a study by Caleb Alexander, a drug safety and efficacy expert at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues.

Alexander: What we found was that even though we have strong evidence and very clear guidelines as to who should receive these treatments only about one in four eligible adults in the United States are taking them for what we call primary prevention and only about two in three were taking them for what we call secondary prevention, that is taking them to reduce cholesterol after a diagnosis of a heart attack or a stroke or peripheral vascular disease.      :29

Alexander says subsequent heart attacks and strokes result in a lot of avoidable hospitalizations, procedures and deaths if medicines to reduce cholesterol were utilized as indicated. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.