New Cholesterol Guidelines 2013

A group of experts tasked to update the guidelines in the treatment of  blood cholesterol levels have recently released their report.

Cholesterol Guidelines 2013

The group, composed of experts with diverse scientific and clinical backgrounds and experience, was convened by the the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to come up with new evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of cholesterol for the primary and secondary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in women and men. The last update was made in 2004.

The new guidelines can almost be reduced to answering a single question: Should this person be taking a statin drug, or not?

To answer the question, an assessment of the person's cardiovascular risk has to be done. A statin therapy is strongly recommended if the risk is considered "high."
 
Below are four categories of “high risk” individuals for whom statin therapy ought to be used:

• Individuals with known cardiovascular disease due to atherosclerosis. Most of these people have had a myocardial infarction (heart attack), angina, peripheral artery disease, or a stroke.
• Individuals with very high LDL cholesterol levels - greater than 189 mg/dL.  In most cases, these people have familial hypercholesterolemia.
• Individuals with diabetes who are 40 to 75 years old.
• Individuals whose 10-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease due to atherosclerosis is estimated to be 7.5% or higher. (The NHLBI has provided this simple on-line tool to estimate your 10-year risk.)

If the person belongs to either of the first two categories, a high-intensity statin therapy is recommended for optimal risk reduction. Meanwhile, if he/she belongs to the latter two categories, either high-intensity or moderate-intensity statin therapy can be used (moderate intensity being roughly half the high-intensity dose), depending on the judgment of the doctor and patient.

Whatever the patient's level of cardiovascular risk is, lifestyle modification is recommended to reduce risk.  (Source: About.com)