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Statins reduce heart attack risk by 30% in healthy over-70s
Following a world-first trial involving 3400 GPs, researchers hope their findings will lead to updated treatment guidelines for managing older patients.
A world-first trial has provided ‘gold-standard evidence’ that statins can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Statins have been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke by 30% in people aged over 70, in the results of a world-first clinical trial involving 3400 GPs.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and presented last week at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2026, the trial tracked and analysed the cardiovascular outcomes of almost 10,000 participants over a 10-year period, up to February 2026.
The Statins in Reducing Events in the Elderly (STAREE) Trial by Monash University researchers is the first randomised controlled trial to examine whether the medication commonly prescribed to manage high cholesterol could help older healthy people.
Lead researcher Adjunct Professor Sophia Zoungas, from the Monash School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, said the findings ‘will change the way clinicians manage cardiovascular risk in older people’.
‘STAREE stands as a benchmark for international clinical trials that can directly inform preventive care worldwide,’ she said.
More than 3400 GPs were involved in the trial, for which 9971 participants were recruited from the clinical databases of more than 1000 general medical practices all over Australia.
All participants were aged 70 or older who lived independently and had no history of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia or other life-limiting conditions.
About one quarter were from rural areas, and 51.9% were women.
Of the participants, 4984 were assigned to receive atorvastatin and 4987 to receive placebo.
Those taking a daily dose of 40 mg atorvastatin were associated with a lower risk of major cardiovascular events than those taking the placebo over an average follow-up of six years.
Professor Mark Nelson, a GP and study co-author, told newsGP the trial was a ‘massive effort’ by the practices and the GPs that took part.
‘Without GPs and general practices, this wouldn’t have been able to be done,’ he said.
‘The Americans who started a study at a similar time, they’re still recruiting, and we’ve completed it. It’s a real indicator of the strength of general practice in Australia.’
Professor Nelson said research into statins use within this population group had previously been an ‘evidence-free zone’.
‘The evidence in the systematic reviews and meta-analyses was pooled data from studies done in younger populations, but they had some of the over 70s, and that gave you statistical significance until about the age of 75,’ he said.
‘But ultimately the highest-level evidence with a particular population or group comes from a very large clinical trial done in that group, so I think this trumps the systematic reviews meta-analyses, and it extends the proven benefit of lipids into the over 75s as well.
‘This is gold-standard evidence that if you give it [to your patients], you’ll reduce their cardiovascular event risk.’
Professor Zoungas said she now hopes to see ‘updated treatment guidelines to help clinicians make use of this new finding’.
Professor Nelson, who was a principal researcher in the ASPREE aspirin trials, said the findings of the STAREE clinical trial ‘will change the guidelines in Australia and right around the world’.
‘We saw that with our ASPREE study,’ he said. ‘They changed their guidelines from a low-level recommendation for aspirin in the aged to a higher-level recommendation against, and that was based purely and simply on our study. So, we can expect that to happen again.’
However, he said whether a person takes statins as a preventive medication is ‘ultimately a decision between the physician and their patient’.
‘They know their patient, and the final arbitrator is always the patient,’ he said.
‘We know that they throw away a lot of our scripts before they leave the clinic, including certain prescriptions, so it is something that both the doctor and the patient need to be happy doing.
‘But what we can tell them is that you’re likely to gain benefit, and you’re unlikely to be harmed.’
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cardiovascular event heart attack high cholesterol statin stroke treatment guidelines
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