8-Year-Olds on Statins? A New Plan Quickly Bites Back

The  potential market for treatment of lipids(cholesterol)continues to grow. Recent recommendations regarding potential for treatment of children as young as 8 are controversial, primarily because of the lack of data to demonstrate efficacy in terms of "hard" endpoints(i.e. mortality/MI)vs. morbidity of the therapy(i.e. cognitive dysfunction/growth delay). The intellectual underpinning of the...

We do not know enough about the effects of statins over a lifetime to justify use in children. Maybe we would reduce cardiovascular mortality, maybe not.  But at what cost?  I'm talking about both financial costs and the health costs related to drug side effects.  We need a lot more information before recommending this course of action for all children with abnormal lipids. A better...

While I am sure that there are a few children with hereditary lipid disorders which should be treated aggressively and early with statins, the data is certainly not available to support routine treatment of every child with elevated lipid values.

Dangers of over-medication.  Lack of long term studies.  lack of personal and parental responsibility

Widespread use of statins is likely to reduce the incidence of heart attacks and strokes and reduce the process responsible: atherosclerosis. Statins are expensive and selection of individuals and children at high to moderate risk should go beyond risk stratification by standard means and use more objective evidence of early asymptomatic atherosclerosis. Such a measure is carotid intima-media...

This recommedation is just a reflection of how out of hand the crisis of obesity and metabolic syndrome/diabetes is in our youth. We all need to wake up and do something.

While statins have been proven to lower cholesterol, the absolute numbers of prevented deaths or myocardial infarctions has been poor, with the NNT (number needed to treat) at between 50-100, depending upon whom you ask.

With the pipeline for new drugs running dry, it is no surprise that pharmaceutical companies are looking to expand indications for existing products still under patent protection.  What better way to do this than by creating entirely new patient populations out of whole cloth?