Menopause Often Means Worsening Cholesterol

 

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That answer emerged because the researchers changed the way they had been counting. In previous studies, they stopped assessing the effect of higher-dose statin use after a single second event. In the two new studies, they kept monitoring the effects after a second event.

"The benefits are even bigger than we thought," Cannon said. "Fifty percent more events were prevented than we have been counting to date because we were just counting the first event."

Other studies in the same issue of the journal reported that:

• People who stopped smoking after a first heart attack had half the risk of dying prematurely than did those who continued to smoke.
• High blood pressure and atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, develop before puberty in obese children, and increased physical activity decreases them.
• Modest weight loss in obese adults, an average of 22 pounds, improves heart muscle and blood vessel structure and function.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on good and bad cholesterol.

SOURCES: Karen A. Matthews, Ph.D., professor, psychiatry, epidemiology and psychology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh; Christopher P. Cannon, M.D., cardiologist, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston; Dec. 15/22, 2009, Journal of the American College of Cardiology