By increasing the dose of cholesterol lowering dugs statin could prevent thousands of deaths due to heart attack and strokes, revealed a new study. Statins reduced the levels of LDL or bad cholesterol and risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients who are at greater risk.
The research teams from UK and Australia compared a normal statin treatment with a more intensive therapy, among those at higher risk heart disease. Taking stronger statins would result in fewer death per hundred people each year, reported research published in the Lancet medical journal. It was concluded that higher dose of statin cut heart rate and death by thirteen percent.
In a study analysis that included about two lakh participants, researchers from Oxford and Sydney examined how death rates dropped as statins were prescribed to reduce the levels of LDL or bad cholesterol in the blood. They found patients with major risk of suffering major vascular event, the death rate dropped in proportion to the drop in level of LDL.
The results of study recommend that more intensive statin treatment is advisable to cut the amount of LDL in participants and reduce their risk of death. Cutting cholesterol cuts your hazard of a heart attack. But it has been indistinct if going the extra mile to lower cholesterol even further pays off, explained Prof Jeremy Pearson, spokesman from the British Heart Foundation.
Many people experienced side effects while taking the stronger dose of statins. Doctors may aspire to think switching patients to substitute treatments like mingling statins with other cholesterol-lowering drugs, rather than ramping up the dose, added Prof Pearson. Statins have been associated with side-effects including a serious muscle wasting disease.
This study demonstrates that a bigger drop in cholesterol from more intensive treatment with statins cuts the chance of having a heart attack even more.