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Heart Disease In The News Statins should be used immediately in heart attacks A new study indicates that statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs) should be started immediately after even mild heart attacks or after episodes of unstable angina. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, documents that beginning statins within a few days of the acute episode (as opposed to waiting weeks or months, as is the standard practice) reduced the incidence of death, heart attacks, or hospitalizations over the next 4 months. The stains demonstrated benefit even in those individuals whose cholesterol levels were not particularly high, suggesting that the acute benefit seen with statins may have been due to some mechanism other than the reduction of cholesterol levels. Prior studies have suggested that statins may have an anti-inflammatory action, and may help prevent thrombosis - both of these actions could contribute to the beneficial effect described in this study. |
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