Heart Disease Is Not Caused by High Cholesterol So Taking Statins Is ‘Waste of Time’, Research Finds
13th June 2016
Prescriptions for the cholesterol-reducing drugs statins are a waste of time, a group of experts have said in controversial new research which claims cholesterol does not cause heart disease in the elderly.
An international team of scientists reviewed 19 previous studies, involving 68,000 people, and said they found no link between high levels of LDL cholesterol, the so-called “bad cholesterol”, and heart disease in the over-60s.
The study, published in the BMJ Open Journal, found that 92 per cent of people over 60-years-old with high cholesterol lived as long as, or longer than those with low cholesterol levels. In the remaining 8 per cent, no association was found.