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" Statins should be prescribed to millions more NHS patients in order to lower their risk of having heart attacks and strokes, new draft guidelines published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have claimed. Currently, GPs are instructed to offer the drugs - which work by lowering LDL cholesterol in the liver - to people who have a 20 per cent risk of developing cardiovascular disease within a decade. However, NICE wants this lowered so that patients with even a ten per cent risk are prescribed statins, meaning 12 million or one in four British adults could eventually be on the medication. The drugs are already the most commonly prescribed medication in the country, but it is hoped this approach could save many lives each year. However, professor of public health at the London School of Economics Shah Ebrahim told the Daily Telegraph he thinks it would be better to try and tackle unhealthy lifestyles. &amp;#039;In the long term, we need to move away from the idea that &amp;#039;drugs for everybody&amp;#039; is the way to tackle this problem,&amp;#039; he added. A study in Boston in 2012 found that patients were 39 per cent less likely to develop cardiovascular disease while using statins and 17 per cent less likely to die over five years. Read the draft guidance here "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/healthy-living/news/a24945/statins-should-be-offered-to-many-more-patients/>