There has been some debate over statins in the British media in the last few days, which got me thinking, and of course this raises questions for the medical advisors to the site.

Is heart disease more prevalent in men?

I don’t know, I have never researched this, although I feel generally that I hear of more men having heart disease than women.

Are there more men on statins than women?

Given that this is possibly one of the biggest global health experiments, we should ask the question; are more men involved?

Do statins help us live with less health risks but die sooner?

I recall one gentleman commenting to me a while back that, every year on statins is a year off your life expentancy. Not that lower colestral doen’t help prevent the likes of strokes but they are accused of weakening the heart muscles. (I’ve heard the heart is not the only muscle that can go soft on statins)

I was reminded of this again when I saw this article here and of course there are different camps of opinion in the medical professional about who should be prescribed statins.

The Nice guidelines, which are still in draft form, propose that anyone with a 10% or greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years should be eligible for treatment with the cholesterol-busting drugs.

But the appeal was firmly rejected by Nice. “Cardiovascular disease [CVD] maims and kills people through coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease and stroke.

Then of course there is the issue of side effects and compatibility with other drugs.

The eight doctors say they do not believe the benefits of statins outweigh the side-effects.