As well as identifying the benefits of statins to the wider population, the Queen Mary University of London study was also able to identify which gender benefitted least from stopping statin treatment early.
Overall, since men were found to have worse cardiovascular health than women, they were found to exhibit the least benefit from stopping early. Dr Wu said: “Women’s cardiovascular risk is generally lower than men’s. This means that for women, most of the lifelong benefit from statins occurs later in life and stopping therapy prematurely is likely more detrimental than for men.”
Alongside measuring the negative impacts of ending statin treatment early, the study also assessed the impact of beginning it late. They found that those who under the age of 45, who had a 20 percent risk of a heart attack, faced a greater risk if they delayed treatment than those who had a five percent risk.
Dr Wu said of this data: “Again, this is because people at higher cardiovascular risk start to accrue benefit early on and have more to lose by delaying statin therapy than those at low risk.”
READ MORE: Italian man tests positive for Covid, monkeypox and HIV
