Cholesterol Lowering Therapy

Up until now, people with a 10% or higher risk over 10 years of a cardiovascular event (heart attack or stroke) should be offered a statin under current NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidance.

That advice has now changed. The new NICE guideline on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment and reduction considered new evidence on the side effects and safety of statins, meaning more people could be given them.

Although statins can sometimes cause side effects such as muscle pains, the best evidence shows that most people don’t get muscle pains with statins, and many more people will get muscle pains whether they take statins or not than have muscle pain caused by statins.

The new guideline recommends statins can now be considered as part of shared decision-making for people who haven’t had a CVD event (called ‘primary prevention’) with a 10-year CVD risk score of less than 10%.

The NICE committee agreed that if more people took statins there would be a greater reduction in the incidence of heart disease and strokes.

For patients who decline a statin or are unable to tolerate a statin due to side-effects e.g. muscle symptoms such as pain, weakness or cramps, an alternative cholesterol lowering treatment will be offered.