Call to make more Statins available

Research recently released by the Stanford University School of Medicine has one surprising finding.  Too few heart patients are being prescribed statins.  It's common to find research criticising levels of prescription, but perhaps rare that the advice is to increase prescription.

So, just what are statins?  Statins act to reduce cholesterol levels within the cardiovascular system.  Studies have shown significant benefits when they are applied to lowering LDL levels in medium to high risk patient groups.

"We looked at people who were likely to benefit the most from these drugs and we found a wide therapeutic gap," said Dr. Jun Ma, who was the first named author of the paper.

The paper is published in the May 31 issue of the journal Public Library of Medicine.