{"id":5964,"date":"2017-08-02T15:45:29","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T14:45:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=5964"},"modified":"2017-08-02T15:45:29","modified_gmt":"2017-08-02T14:45:29","slug":"behind-numbers-60s-taking-statins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/science-mct\/maths-statistics\/behind-numbers-60s-taking-statins\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the numbers: should all over 60s be taking statins?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been a flurry of media reports over new research from Harvard University<\/a> suggesting that “almost all” men over 60 and women over 75 should be taking statins to reduce their risk of stroke and heart attack.<\/p>\n

The research explores the likelihood of people having a cardiovascular event across age ranges and aims to estimate the number of adults in England who will need to used statins under guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).<\/p>\n

Behind the numbers – calculating risk<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Analysing the numbers behind the research, the OU’s Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, Professor Kevin McConway, said:<\/p>\n

Just because the algorithm for calculating the risk of a cardiovascular event over the next 10 years puts that risk at over 10% for almost all males aged 60-74, and for a majority of women in that age group too, that doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s incorrectly calibrated.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be personal here.\u00a0 I\u2019m 66, and according to the official life tables put out by Britain\u2019s Office for National Statistics, the risk of death in the next 10 years for an average man of my age is about 18%.\u00a0 None of us lives forever, and, despite all the medical advances and increases in life expectancy, well, I am still getting on a bit.\u00a0 More than one in four of deaths of men in my age group in the UK are from cardiovascular disease.\u00a0 The risk calculated by the algorithm is of all cardiovascular events, not just those that lead to a death.\u00a0 So I\u2019m well aware that the risk of a cardiovascular event in the next 10 years for an average man of my age is over 10%.\u00a0 That\u2019s about averages, but (for example) the charts published by Heart UK\u00a0<\/a>which relate the risk to age, smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and use a different risk algorithm, also put the 10 year risk at over 10% for all men aged 60 and over, and for most women.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Making sense of health advice<\/h3>\n

\"stethoscope<\/p>\n

NICE’s 2014 guidelines recommend that anyone with a one-in-10 or higher chance of developing cardiovascular disease should be taking statins. Based on this, and Harvard’s calculations of the number of people at risk, the research concludes that 11.8 million (37%) adults in England aged 30\u201384 years, including almost all males >60 years in all females >75 years, require statin therapy.<\/p>\n

Assessing this, Professor McConway says:<\/p>\n

Actually the key question here for me is not about the risk algorithm, but about whether the NICE advice makes sense.\u00a0 If someone\u2019s 10 year risk of a cardiovascular event is over 10%, but not by much, below the old guideline of 20%, is the balance between the health gains from the statins and the risk of possible adverse effects, taking into account the cost of the drugs, in favour of them taking the statins?\u00a0 NICE thinks it is, though it does very clearly recommend that statins should be offered only after a full discussion between the patient and their doctor, taking into account personal circumstances, other ways that cardiovascular risk might be reduced, and the risks and benefits involved.\u00a0 Personally I agree with NICE on this (and I do take statins daily myself, for what that\u2019s worth \u2013 my personal circumstances are my own and others will differ), though I do acknowledge that there remains some controversy about these recommendations.\u00a0 The authors of this paper are right to point out that there are resource implications for GPs (and others), but it\u2019s no secret that there are costs associated with keeping us older people healthy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To find out more about Applied Statistics at the OU visit our home of free learning – OpenLearn\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been a flurry of media reports over new research from Harvard University suggesting that “almost all” men over 60 and women over 75 should be taking statins to reduce their risk of stroke and heart attack. The research explores the likelihood of people having a cardiovascular event across age ranges and aims to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":5965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,1264,1392],"class_list":["post-5964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maths-statistics","tag-applied-statistics","tag-kevin-mcconway","tag-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}