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One in five people with high cholesterol refuse to take prescribed life-saving statin medication, according to a new study.聽Statins lower the amount of cholesterol in the blood, preventing this fat from building up within and ultimately blocking a person鈥檚 coronary arteries.

The US-based study published in the reviewed the medical data of 24,212 US citizens using artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology to find that one聽in five聽Americans refused to accept statin therapy despite being at high risk of developing heart disease.

The study also found that women were more likely than men to refuse to take statins when prescribed, and also less likely than men to achieve good cholesterol control within 12 months from diagnosis.

Patients who accepted a statin therapy recommendation by their clinicians achieved an LDL cholesterol level of less than 100 mg/dL in a median time of 1.5 years vs 4.4 years for patients who did not accept statin therapy. Women were significantly less likely than men to accept statin therapy recommendations and achieve an LDL cholesterol level of less than 100 mg/dL.

said the study was the first of its type and more work would need to be done to understand what was causing the reluctance, but the results are cause for concern.

鈥淐ardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death among Australian women,鈥� said Natalie Raffoul, Healthcare Programs Manager at the Heart Foundation.

鈥淗igh cholesterol impacts 6.5 million Australians 鈥� including 3.6 million Australian women 鈥� and is well recognised as a leading risk factor for heart attacks in Australia.

Raffoul said statin therapy is the gold standard and commonly regarded as having been critical to the reduction in cardiovascular death in Australia over the last 50 years.

The study鈥檚 findings are in line with existing evidence that patient adherence to statin therapy was poor, she added.

鈥淭his new study suggests that even before the point of being prescribed a medication, acceptance of statin therapy is poor too.

鈥淲e have more work to do to understand what is causing this reluctance so that we can improve the uptake of statins among those who are prescribed them,鈥� Raffoul said.

Image credit: iStock.com/rogerashford