Federal Recommendations For Heart Disease Prevention Could Cause Spike In Statin Use

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Some major changes in preventing heart disease may be in the works.

Recommendations from a federal task force could nearly double the number of Americans taking cholesterol lowering drugs.

As CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez explained, the number one cause of death in the United States is cardiovascular disease -- one in three adults will die from it.

Heart disease has been declining for years and many doctors believe that's due in part to the widespread use of statins to reduce cholesterol levels.

Joyce Enright, 64, has been taking them for seven years.

"I just couldn't get it under control myself, so it was time," she said.

Now, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force is recommending a dramatic expansion in the number of people it says should be taking statins.

The group recommends that people age 40 to 75 with no history of heart disease, who have one or more of four key risk factors: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, or diabetes, could benefit from taking statins.

Who would benefit most from statins is determined by your odds of having a heart attack in the next 10 years as estimated by the American College of Cardiology risk calculator.

The task force recommendations appear in JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The benefits of statins are a reduction in heart attack, strokes, and death, The harms of statins we judge based on our very comprehensive review of the literature to be small. And in the patients who are at elevated risk for cardiovascular disease, the benefits outweigh the harms," Douglas K. Owens, M.D., Former Member U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, explained.

Although statins have proven safe over the decades, they are powerful drugs with potential side effects.

"It can cause muscle pain, it can cause joint pain, it could cause liver problems, elevation of liver enzymes. It could cause memory loss," Dr. Suzanna Steinbaum, Lenox Hill Hospital said.

Nearly half of U.S. adults have one or more of those cardiovascular risk factors.

The good news is that many statins are now generic so the cost is relatively low.