Older people should consider taking statins to offset the increased age-related risk of stroke and heart disease, the main findings of two new studies say.

This advice extends to people with no history of coronary heart disease.

The claimed benefits are a lower risk of deaths from all causes and from heart disease, and an increased number of years lived in good health.

Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs that are widely used by middle-aged people with risky or unhealthy lipid profiles.

Statins control the production of ‘bad’ cholesterol and reduce the amount of cholesterol circulating in the body, but they don’t affect dietary cholesterol.

Cholesterol is linked to atherosclerosis – the build-up of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on artery walls which is a leading risk factor for heart disease.

This build-up, called plaque, can cause arteries to narrow and block blood flow. Plaque can also burst, leading to a blood clot.

Most statin research has been done in middle-aged populations.

Some doctors have been reluctant to prescribe statins to older people because of the lack of evidence of its benefits.

However, these new studies find that most older people taking statins don’t suffer a spike in side-effects. This has been a point of contention for some years.

The benefits

One of the new studies, from the University of Hong Kong and Harvard University, found that statins “effectively lowered all-cause and cardiovascular deaths among older adults”.

“Older adults” referred to people aged over 60, including people over 85 years.

Researchers claimed to provide “the first comprehensive evidence of the benefits of statin use in elderly patients, addressing longstanding uncertainties”.

The “robust evidence demonstrated that continuous statin therapy resulted in a substantial relative risk reduction in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)”.

For people aged 75–84 there was a reduced risk of 21 per cent. For those aged 85 and above, the reduced risk was 35 per cent.

There were no “heightened safety concerns”.

The researchers analysed medical records from January 2008 to December 2018 of more than 80,000 people in Hong Kong.

The participants “had suboptimal lipid levels and high-risk conditions, such as diabetes or other risk factors for CVDs”.

Could statins save the health system?

The other study was led by Oxford University, and involved Australian researchers. It found that statins were a cost-effective means of reducing the risks of CVD.

Further, they boosted the number of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) – years lived in good health.

The protective benefits were greater in people with a history of heart disease.

What’s with the analysis of cost-effectiveness? The UK’s national health service is struggling to stay afloat, and the ageing population isn’t helping.

A cheap, effective measure that protects against age-related heart disease could potentially offset some of those costs.

As the authors note:

“The UK’s ageing population means that the over-70s now make up around 30 per cent of people over the age of 40, yet despite cardiovascular risk increasing with age, statin use is lower among the over-70s.”

This was a modelling exercise. The lifetime effects and cost-effectiveness of statin therapy for people aged 70 and above was projected “using the latest evidence on these drugs’ safety and effectiveness in older people”.

Other benefits

Statins may be useful for treating other issues.

A study published in March found that statins could be helpful against gum disease.

Conducted in cell cultures, the study showed that “cholesterol-lowering drugs help to dampen the inflammation associated with periodontal disease by altering the behaviour of macrophages, a type of immune cell”.

In May, investigators from Massachusetts General Cancer Centre, revealed that statins “may block a particular pathway involved in the development of cancer that results from chronic inflammation”.