Certain groups of people seem to be missing out when it comes to optimizing cardiovascular disease prevention, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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New guidelines for managing cholesterol levels have recently been released by the American College of Cardiology. Cardiologist Roger Blumenthal at Johns Hopkins chaired the committee that wrote the guidelines, and says that in reviewing the data it became clear that some groups of people seem to experience suboptimal management routinely.

Blumenthal: We talked about certain groups or not being treated adequately enough we have great data that people with chronic kidney disease, people with HIV infection and people with diabetes really should almost all be given strong consideration for being on a statin. And too many times we see individuals with chronic kidney disease, HIV infection or diabetes who either are not on a statin or they're one just a low dose and treating those individuals I think is so very important.             :28

Blumenthal says managing a chronic illness can be challenging, but cardiovascular risk is already elevated in these groups of people so cholesterol must be considered. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.