It’s the leading cause of death in the US — one person dies of cardiovascular disease every 33 seconds, according to the CDC. However, a new study suggests that many who are eligible for medication to lower cholesterol aren’t actually taking it.
Every year in the US, about 805,000 people have a heart attack and more than 795,000 have a stroke. There are medications to reduce the risk of both, however, Dr. Caleb Alexander with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says that, “despite the benefits of these treatments for high cholesterol, they’re underutilized.”
Alexander is the lead author of a study that analyzed 5,000 US adults — about half of those studied were eligible to take medication to lower cholesterol, but only about 23% of the patients who had never had a major cardiovascular event were taking the medicine to reduce risk of one.
Similarly, only about 68% of those who have had a major event were taking the medication.
“These treatments include statins, which many people may be familiar with,” Alexander said. “These drugs are safe and effective and have been on the market for many, many years, but there are also newer treatments.”
Alexander says that there are many reasons people may not be taking cholesterol-lowering medication — many are undiagnosed and skip yearly checkups, so they don’t know they have high cholesterol.
Others may not feel they need treatment or are unable to afford it, while others don’t remember to take the medicine consistently.
“Tens of thousands of heart attacks and tens of thousands of strokes could be prevented each year if people were receiving treatment for high cholesterol that’s in accordance with the best expert guidelines,” Alexander said.
Alexander says he hopes this research will encourage patients and providers to work together to identify when high cholesterol may be present and when a treatment may be needed.