Statins are overprescribed for primary prevention, study suggests

The 10 year risk levels at which guidelines recommend initiating statins for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are too low, a modelling study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests.1

The study found that statins provided net benefits in primary prevention only at a substantially higher 10 year risk of cardiovascular disease than the 7.5%-10.0% cut-offs recommended by guidelines.

The findings support the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) decision in 2014, when it revised its recommendations, not to follow recommendations by the American College of …