I had a blog post ready to go up on this topic. But it has changed now, in light of today's report in the NYTimes.
As regular readers of EclectEcon know, I am more than a little skeptical about (a) the relationship between cholesterol and heart health, (b) the effectiveness of statins in reducing heart disease as a primary treatment for those who have not had heart problems, and (c) the assessment of the side effects of statins. [For my earlier postings, see this and this.]
So when the major media were writing about a new report from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiologists that included a risk calculator, I wasn't ready to accept their report holus bolus.
Sure as shootin', the risk calculator is flawed. I plugged in the optimal numbers for healthy people and found that according to that risk calculator any male over 65 has a sufficiently high risk of having a heart attack in the next ten years that he should be on statins. I thought to myself, "yeah, sure." That conclusion makes no sense in light of studies that using statins as a primary treatment reduces the risk of a heart attack by only about 1%. That's only one percent, not one percentage point.
And my suspicions have been confirmed. From today's NYTimes,
Last week, the nation’s leading heart organizations released a sweeping new set of guidelines for lowering cholesterol, along with an online calculator meant to help doctors assess risks and treatment options. But, in a major embarrassment to the health groups, the calculator appears to greatly overestimate risk, so much so that it could mistakenly suggest that millions more people are candidates for statin drugs.
Granted, that table does not include family history, weight, whether the person smokes or drinks or how much, etc., so as a risk calculator it is at best a rough and ready measure. But when it says that healthy males, 65 years old, have a 9 % risk of having a heart attack in the next ten years AND that anyone with a 7.5% risk or higher should be on statins, it is essentially saying every male over 65 should be on statins.
Frickn pill-pushers. I don't believe it. And I'm glad the NYTimes, in the linked lead article, has publicized the flaws.