Epoch HealthRisk Assessment Report Suggests Fewer Americans Need to Take Statins

Read the original article

New risk assessment guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA) suggest a significant reduction in the number of Americans who may need to take statins. The PREVENT equation, introduced in 2023, aims to more accurately assess cardiovascular risk in today’s population compared to the previous pooled cohort equation (PCE) from 2013.

Key Points:

• A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine on June 10, 2024, found that approximately 40% of people currently advised to take statins would not be under the new PREVENT criteria.
• The PREVENT equation predicts 10-year atherosclerosis risk, accounting for clinical factors including cardiovascular and kidney issues, without considering race and ethnicity.
• Under PREVENT criteria, the study cohort’s overall risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease decreased from 8% to 4%.
• Black adults saw the most significant risk reduction, from 10.9% to 5.1%, with those aged 70-75 experiencing a decrease from 22.8% to 10.2%.
• The adoption of PREVENT could reduce the number of adults recommended for statin therapy from 45.4 million to 28.3 million.
• Approximately 4.1 million patients currently taking statins may no longer be advised to do so under the new guidelines.
• The authors emphasize that this shift allows for refocusing efforts on populations at highest risk.

“We don’t want people to think they were treated incorrectly in the past. They were treated with the best data we had when the PCE (a cardiovascular risk calculator) was introduced back in 2013. The data have changed.”
– Dr. Timothy Anderson, lead author of the study

More on Statins