The number needed to treat for cardiovascular benefit is pretty high, so it's a pretty marginal difference for your relative.
1 in 50 for higher risk and 1 in 150 for lower risk individuals, over five years of treatment.
However at the population level, applying that two percent reduction means for 10,000,000 people you're looking at 200,000 less heart attacks (and similar events) over five years.
I think it's important for information to be communicated transparently - if your doctor tells you that taking statins will reduce your risk of dying from a heart attacks by half, and elsewhere you see that only 1 in 50 people over five years benefits, then a normal response would be to lose trust in the conventional medical establishment (even though both those statements can be true).
The number needed to treat for cardiovascular benefit is pretty high, so it's a pretty marginal difference for your relative.
1 in 50 for higher risk and 1 in 150 for lower risk individuals, over five years of treatment.
However at the population level, applying that two percent reduction means for 10,000,000 people you're looking at 200,000 less heart attacks (and similar events) over five years.
I think it's important for information to be communicated transparently - if your doctor tells you that taking statins will reduce your risk of dying from a heart attacks by half, and elsewhere you see that only 1 in 50 people over five years benefits, then a normal response would be to lose trust in the conventional medical establishment (even though both those statements can be true).