Using a statin for five years in middle age may reduce heart, death risks for decades.

The AP (11/20, Marchione) reports that research presented at the American Heart Association meeting suggests that using a statin “for five years in middle age can lower heart and death risks for decades afterward, and the benefits seem to grow over time.” The research, which began in 1989, included approximately 6,600 middle-aged men who had high LDL. Half of the participants were given a placebo and the other half were given pravastatin. Researchers found that “five years later, there were 35 percent fewer heart-related deaths and also fewer heart attacks” among those who had been given pravastatin. The investigators also found that “twenty year after the study began, the risk of heart-related deaths was 27 percent lower among the men who took” pravastatin “for those first five years.”