There is an academic war brewing that could help determine how many millions of statins will be prescribed to try to prevent heart disease. Two prestigious medical journals, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal, are the battlegrounds.
On one side: the doctors who have performed clinical trials proving that statins will lower the chance of having a heart attack. In a recent article published in the Lancet, researchers have suggested that almost everyone will benefit from taking a statin, even if they have never had a heart problem. The conclusion: statins are so safe that they are essentially no different from placebo.
On the other side: A British Medical Journal article suggesting side effects of statins are very common, perhaps suffered by as many as 20 percent of people taking cholesterol-lowering medication. The authors of this BMJ publication call for new medications to help lower cholesterol in people who cannot tolerate statins.
