Statins reduce cardiovascular risk in healthy women
December 2009
The latest sub-analysis of the JUPITER trial shows that a woman who consumes statins can reduce the risk of cardiovascular events with no signs of heart disease.
The risk of cardiovascular event in women reduced 46 % by taking statins as compared to placebo. American Heart Association presented this week at the annual conference in Orlando that Florida are the first to suggest healthy women can benefit from statin treatment.
Previous major statin studies focused only on men. The researchers have carried out a sex-specific analysis of outcomes from the JUPITER trial for this latest studies.
According to a survey 6,801 women and 11,001 men, aged 60 and over were given rosuvastatin or placebo (20mg daily) and were followed up for cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or stroke.
At the end of the survey the researchers found that, both in women and men the relative risk reduction of cardiovascular events with rosuvastatin was similar.
The risk of cardiovascular event in women reduced 46 % by taking statins as compared to placebo. A research at Harvard School of Medicine in Boston by Dr Paul Ridker and his team found that there is no significant increase in myopathy or cancer with the use of rosuvastatin. However, women taking statins have a higher incidence of diabetes.
A warning was given to all nurses to not to offer statins to patients in isolation but offer them in line with healthy lifestyle, by Jill Ridley who is a cardiac specialist nurse for Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale PCT.
‘At the moment statin use tends to be been aimed at elderly men so these findings could help to increase the focus of statin treatment in women. There have been only a few small studies looking at statin use in women. These latest findings warrant further research,’ she added.
