Lower your risk of dementia and heart disease with statin drugs

In November 2016, researchers released new recommended treatments to lower your risk of dementia and heart disease. The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) reviewed medical studies that included over 70 thousand patients. Through this research, they recommended the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs commonly called "statins" for prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Studies showed that statin therapy reduced risk of the death rate overall and especially deaths from cardiovascular diseases (CVD), as well as reducing non-fatal heart attacks & strokes. The strongest recommendation was for ...initiating use of low- to moderate-dose statins in adults aged 40 to 75 years without a history of CVD who have 1 or more CVD risk factors and a calculated 10-year CVD event risk of 10% or greater...

Will statin to lower your risk of heart disease

You can see your own risk of CVD with an online calculator, if you know know a few pieces of your medical data.

While statins cholesterol drugs have proven to lower your risk of heart disease, it may not be the right therapy for you. Let's discuss some of the guidelines.

The recommendation for using statins preventively for people with lower than 10% risk was less strong. If you are 76 or over, there isn't much evidence that statins help at all. Given that 1 out of 5 people who take statins complain of some side effect, usually muscle discomfort, these latter two groups should have some other risk factor to justify using statins. A strong family history of heart disease could be a reason, for example.

Now those of you already on statins because of existing heart or blood vessel disease -- don't stop. This recommendation only applies to prevention, not treatment of known CVD. There is very strong medical evidence that use of statins after heart attack or stroke lessens the risk of recurrence or complications.

Can Statin cholesterol drugs prevent dementia?

A study published in March 2017 hints at another significant preventive benefit of statin use: reducing the risk of dementia. Records of almost 400, 000 patients were studied and use of statins by participants lowered the risk of dementia up to 29%, although men in some ethnic groups benefitted little. Since no effective treatment exists for Alzheimers Disease, the fact that statins can lower the occurrence is reassuring to those taking these medicines for other reasons.