Statins for people at low risk of heart disease needs rethink, say top doctors

A group of doctors, including the head of one royal college and the former head of another, is calling for a rethink on an NHS proposal that people at low risk of heart disease should be prescribed statins.

Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physicians, and Clare Gerada, a past chair of the Royal College of GPs, are two of the eight signatories of a letter to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

The signatories are concerned that up to five million healthy individuals will be "medicalised". The Nice guidelines, which are still in draft form, propose that anyone with a 10% or greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years should be eligible for treatment with the cholesterol-busting drugs.

But the appeal was firmly rejected by Nice. "Cardiovascular disease [CVD] maims and kills people through coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease and stroke. Together, these kill one in three of us. Our proposals are intended to prevent many lives being destroyed," said Prof Mark Baker, director of the centre for clinical practice at Nice.

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/10/statins-low-risk-heart-disease-rethink-doctors-nice