Dr. McDougall's Online Discussion Board

I just saw the video in which Dr. McDougall says that stains only lower the risk of stroke or heart attack by 1%.

But then I saw this from the CDC. (Yes, I know what you're thinking. Me too).
"A study of more than 135,000 people at risk for a heart attack or stroke found that those who took statins had a 25% lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to those who did not take statins. Statins are among the safest and most studied medications."

And this from an article by Joseph A. Hill, MD PhD:
Data from the 2008 JUPITER Trial suggest a 54 percent heart attack risk reduction and a 48 percent stroke risk reduction in people at risk for heart disease who used statins as preventive medicine.

I think the difference is relative vs absolute risk.

Now consider the impact of taking statins for both. According to the study, statins would reduce the relative risk of dying by 9%. In absolute terms, the man would reduce his risk from 38% to 34.6%, and the woman from 1.4% to 1.3%

The absolute risk reduction was 0.8% (95% CI, 0.4% - 1.2%) for all-cause mortality, 1.3% (95% CI, 0.9% - 1.7%) for myocardial infarction, and 0.4% (95% CI, 0.2% - 0.6%) for stroke in patients randomized to statin treatment.

Further, the associated relative risk reduction was 9% (95% CI, 5% - 14%) for all-cause mortality, 29% (95% CI, 22% - 34%) for myocardial infarction, and 14% (95% CI, 5% - 22%) for stroke.

https://www.hcplive.com/view/absolute-benefit-statins-cautioned-significant-heterogeneity

Probably best to estimate your risk .There are many online tools that estimate this for you.
If high, take statins?

pundit999 wrote:Probably best to estimate your risk .There are many online tools that estimate this for you.
If high, take statins?

The tool that my cardiologist recommends is the ACC/AHA risk calculator, which can be found at http://tools.acc.org/ASCVD-Risk-Estimator.

Note that this tool is for people without a diagnosed cardiovascular disease (if you have CVD the ACC guidelines are pretty clear that you should be on a statin).

My cardiologist says that in some cases, he has taken patients off of a statin based on the results of the tool and discussions with the patient.

Of course, you should discuss the tool and its recommendations with your doctor...