More than half of adults between the ages of 30 and 79, about 87.5 million people, in the United States now fulfill the criteria to take cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins to prevent future heart attacks, strokes and other issues, according to a study by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. An additional 21.5 million Americans are now recommended for statins, bringing the total to just under 57% of adults ages 30 to 79, according to the new paper by a team from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan.
“The shift to a longer view of cardiovascular disease risk is a sea change for doctors in counseling patients,” said Timothy S. Anderson, M.D., M.A.S., a primary care physician, health quality researcher and assistant professor of medicine at Pitt.
