Lipid-Lowering Therapy Is Likely to Provide Substantial Cardiovascular Benefit in Older Adults

Current guidelines for treating hyperlipidemia are less clearly defined for patients older than 75 than for younger patients. Inconsistent data on the association of LDL cholesterol levels and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in older patients come largely from cohorts enrolled decades ago, when treatment options and preventive measures were more primitive and life expectancies were shorter. In addition, clinical trials of lipid-lowering therapies usually have included relatively few older adults.

For an updated assessment of the association of elevated LDL cholesterol levels with ASCVD in older adults, Danish researchers studied a representative cohort assembled between 2003 and 2015 consisting of more than 90,000 white Europe…