{"id":33294,"date":"2012-11-28T22:40:45","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T03:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33294"},"modified":"2012-11-28T22:46:31","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T03:46:31","slug":"statins-and-exercise-independently-beneficial-even-better-in-combination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2012\/11\/28\/statins-and-exercise-independently-beneficial-even-better-in-combination\/","title":{"rendered":"Statins and Exercise: Independently Beneficial, Even Better in Combination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s no secret that statins and exercise are good for people with dyslipidemia. Now a study\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(12)61426-3\/fulltext\">published in the\u00a0<em>Lancet<\/em><\/a>\u00a0offers fresh evidence suggesting that the two may be independently beneficial, and that the two together may yield greater benefits than either alone.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. researchers analyzed data from 10,043 people with dyslipidemia treated at either of two Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. Participants were followed for a median of 10 years, during which time nearly a quarter of them died. After adjustment for baseline characteristics and other risk factors, a mortality reduction was separately and independently associated with statin use and with greater fitness; the largest mortality reduction was found in the subgroup of patients who were taking statins and were highly fit (&gt;9 metabolic equivalents).<\/p>\n<p>The researchers further reported that only a moderate and achievable amount of exercise produced an effect similar to that of statins in people not taking statins. &#8220;Improved fitness,&#8221; they write, &#8220;is an attractive adjunct treatment to statins or an alternative when statins cannot be taken.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fitness necessary to attain protection that is much the same or greater than that achieved by statin treatment in unfit individuals is moderate and feasible for many middle-aged and older adults through moderate intensity physical activity such as walking, gardening, and gym classes,&#8221; said lead researcher\u00a0Peter Kokkinos, in a\u00a0<em>Lancet<\/em>\u00a0press release.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(12)61804-2\/fulltext\">an accompanying editorial<\/a>,\u00a0Pedro Hallal and I-Min Lee write that &#8220;the undervaluation of physical activity in clinical practice [is] unacceptable&#8221; and that &#8220;prescription of physical activity should be placed on a par with drug prescription.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<dl>\n<dt><a href=\"http:\/\/trexrunner.com\/2012\/11\/27\/i-found-him\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"50 and fat\" src=\"http:\/\/cardiobrief.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/50-and-fat.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd>Photo by T-Rex Runner (click on the the picture for background on the photo)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s no secret that statins and exercise are good for people with dyslipidemia. Now a study\u00a0published in the\u00a0Lancet\u00a0offers fresh evidence suggesting that the two may be independently beneficial, and that the two together may yield greater benefits than either alone. U.S. researchers analyzed data from 10,043 people with dyslipidemia treated at either of two Veterans [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[210,1576,749,1061,584],"class_list":["post-33294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prevention","tag-cholesterol","tag-dyslipidemia","tag-exercise","tag-fitness","tag-statins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}