Treat the Risk, Not the Cholesterol: Study Challenges Current Cholesterol Recommendations
by ilene - January 23rd, 2010 2:57 pm
Here’s a very important – maybe paradigm shifting - press release on a study that challenges the current, broad-based recommendations for people to lower their cholesterol. My highlights. – Ilene
Pharmboy had this comment:
Good article, and I agree with most of what’s in it, from scientific standpoint. I am not a Doc, but I have worked on this area of research. There are a few things in the pipelines of several companies that may help the inflammation of the arteries when someone is on a statin, and [the biotech] VIAP is spearheading the trials for this exact study. Unfortunately, their drug is for a shorter term treatment, and the real trials will have to be a bodybag trial….either they preserve life, or don’t. Diet and exercise are the two biggest things we can do to stay healthy.
Treat the Risk, Not the Cholesterol: Study Challenges Current Cholesterol Recommendations
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A new study by the University of Michigan Medical School and VA Ann Arbor Health System challenges the medical thinking that the lower the cholesterol, the better.
Tailoring treatment to a patient’s overall heart attack risk, by considering all their risk factors, such as age, family history, and smoking status, was more effective, and used fewer high-dose statins, than current strategies to drive down cholesterol to a certain target, according to the U-M study.
While study authors support the use of cholesterol-lowering statins, they conclude that patients and their doctors should consider all the factors that put them at risk for heart attack and strokes.
The findings will be released online Monday ahead of print in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
"We’ve been worrying too much about people’s cholesterol level and not enough about their overall risk of heart disease," says Rodney A. Hayward, M.D., director of the Veterans Affairs Center for Health Services Research and Development and a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.
The National Cholesterol Education Program recommends harmful LDL cholesterol levels should be less than 130 for most people. High risk patients should be pushed even lower — to less than 70.
The U-M study took a different approach, called tailored treatment, which uses a person’s risk factors and mathematical models to calculate the expected benefit of treatment, by considering:
-- A person’s risk of a heart attack or…