The controversial cholesterol reduction treatment in the United States

New guidelines to expand the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs (fats that cause arteriosclerosis) in the blood for millions of Americans, to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, are highly controversial in the United States.

Last week, the American University of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) introduced a new guide to people who should take cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins.

Accordingly, about 33 million adult Americans should use this drug. Most recently, however, two researchers at Harvard University School of Medicine concluded that the guidelines exaggerated the risks posed by cholesterol to human health, saying that statins were assigned. for too many users.

Some types of cholesterol-lowering drugs are statin.(Source: AFP)

In the British medical journal The Lancet, two scientists, Paul Ridker and Nancy Cook, of Harvard University, said the treatment with this drug should only account for about 40-50% of the 33 million Americans said. on.

According to two Harvard scientists, statins should only be used to reduce the risk of excessive cholesterol in the blood, the main cause of arteriosclerosis and when treated with the drug, the amount of bad cholesterol will decrease. allowable level.

According to ACC, some people are at high risk of bad cholesterol in the blood including older people, people with diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and tobacco use. In addition, the study also found that the percentage of blacks in these subjects is often higher than that of other skinned people. The study area of ​​ACC and AHA were all 5 groups and two scientists from Harvard said that due to the large scale of the research subjects, the risk of "inflated" cholesterol from 75-150%.

According to the US Department of Health statistics, in 2011, the United States has 12 states with obesity rates of over 30%, topping the state of Mississippi with 34.9% at the present time and forecast to increase to 66.7%. in 2030. Colorado is the state with the lowest obesity rate in the United States, accounting for 20.7% of the state's population.

Of the 315 million Americans, about 35.7% of adults and 16.9% of children aged 2-19 are overweight or obese. Therefore, the study of obesity has always been an attractive topic for American scientists.

According to them, if there is soon a change in eating and exercise habits, by 2030, about half of the US population is at risk of being overweight or obese. This problem poses a risk of a wide range of diseases, from type-2 diabetes and high blood pressure to uterine cancer.