More than 50% of adults under the age of 45 who are prescribed a medication to treat high cholesterol are not taking their medication as prescribed, according to the findings of a study released Thursday by CVS Caremark.
In fact, the study found that 58% of adults between the ages of 18 and 34 are not taking their cholesterol-lowering medications as prescribed.
The study examined adherence to cholesterol-lowering medications by evaluating de-identified data for more than 74,000 adult patients from the CVS Caremark Health Management Claims Database who incurred claims from a cholesterol-lowering medication between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2008.
They study found that 42% of patients between the ages of 18 and 34 were optimally adherent to their medications with a medication possession ratio of greater than 80%. In addition, among those patients ages 35 to 44, half were identified as optimally adherent to their high cholesterol medication.
3 comments:
My main beef with statins at any age is the fact that they have major side effects and as Cardiologist Peter Langsjoen notes that statin treatment may lead to heart muscle weakening and failure in particular. ‘It occurs because statin drugs block the production of coenzyme Q10, vital for the production of cell energy,’ says Langsjoen. ‘Evidence to the FDA shows marked reduction of CoQ10 in patients on statin drugs.’
Another point to be borne in mind is the use of long term drug therapy to lower cholesterol levels, where it is unclear what the full effects might be over a 30year period. In spite of this, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives approval for this class of drugs on the basis of less than 10 years’ clinical trials.
In fact, the study found that 58% of adults between the ages of 18 and 34 are not taking their cholesterol-lowering medications as prescribed.
Huh? Very unusual. I wonder just how many 18-year olds there are taking statins.
While the percentages of non-compliance seem high, I wonder how many of those 74,000 patients are between the ages of 18-34?
It is estimated that 15 % of all people taking statin drugs stop taking them due to side effects. the most common being muscle pain. Dr. David Becker and Ram Gordon, M.D. at Chestnut Hill Cardiology, published the findings of their study, “Red Yeast Rice for Dyslipidemia in Statin-Intolerant Patients," in the June 16, 2009 edition of Annals of Internal Medicine. They concluded that red yeast rice was a viable alternative for this population.
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