Risk Calculator for Cholesterol and Heart Disease found to be Flawed

 

Here is a link to a NY Times Article on a new risk calculator which if used could double the number of people with statin prescriptions.  No surprise...  Especially since cholesterol levels have never had a scientifically proven causal relationship to heart disease risk.  Nice to see that a paper did get published in the Lancet showing that this latest "tool" to help doctors determine who should be on statin drugs tends to overestimate risk, and lead to recommendations that people without risk factors be placed on statin therapy.  In case you didn't know pharmaceutical companies fund this well respected medical journal and papers which could damage drug company profits are rarely published.  Spending on cholesterol lowering drugs was $19 billion in 2010, and if this new calculator comes into widespread use the number of people receiving statin prescriptions could double.  As my sister says… follow the money.