December 8, 2016 – Statins for All

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Anchor lead: Is there a statin in your future? Elizabeth Tracey reports

The USPSTF, the federal task force charged with reviewing scientific data and making healthcare recommendations based on available evidence, has issued new guidelines for the use of statins.  Michael Blaha, a preventive cardiology expert at Johns Hopkins, explains.

Blaha: The United States Preventive Services Task Force has now come full circle on statins. While before they were more conservative with their use, they’re now stating that a wide array of patients, those patients who are between 40 and 75 with at least 10% 10 year risk of cardiovascular disease, would benefit from a statin.  This is a large swath of the population. This does say that even if you have a younger patient but with enough risk factors to get them to that 10% risk threshold, absolutely we’re going to talk about a statin, because a statin might  actually slow or reverse the progression of atherosclerosis.  :33

Blaha says the risks of statins are quite low and most people tolerate them very well, with few experiencing muscle aches or any other side effect.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.