Do Women Need To Take Statins To Prevent Heart Disease?
You may have read that heart disease is under diagnosed in women, and that they are missing potential treatments that could save their lives. For instance, in the May 10, 2004, edition of Newsweek, it was reported that heart disease is a “grave threat to women’s health, but no one needs to take it lying down. Statin drugs (Zocor, Lipitor, Pravachol and others) can slash a woman’s heart-attack risk by more than a third-just as they do in men… should you be taking one of these medications?” The answer is-probably not. In a study that combined all of the available information on women from the different clinical trials, the authors found no reduction in heart attacks or mortality in women with high cholesterol who did not have a history of heart disease. That means that if you are a woman with high cholesterol who does not have a history of heart disease, you should not take a statin. But what if my cholesterol is elevated? You might ask. Just because your cholesterol is high, and stati
