TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb 10, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- An Israeli study suggests
patients with high cholesterol levels who continually take statins have a lower
risk of death over four to five years.
Researchers at Maccabi Healthcare Services and the Sackler Faculty of Medicine
in Tel Aviv, Israel, said the lower death risk was seen regardless of whether
the patients already had diagnosed heart disease.
In the study, Dr. Varda Shalev and colleagues analyzed data from 229,918 adults
enrolled in a health maintenance organization who began taking statins between
1998 and 2006.The researchers said they found continuity of taking statins
conferred at least a 45 percent reduction in the risk of death as compared with
patients who took statins less than 10 percent of the time.
"In conclusion, this study showed that the continuation of statin treatment
provided an ongoing reduction in all-cause mortality for up to 9.5 years among
patients with and without a history of coronary heart disease," the scientists
said. "The observed benefits from statins were greater than expected from
randomized clinical trials, emphasizing the importance of promoting statin
therapy and increasing its continuation over time for both primary and secondary
prevention."
The findings are reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
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