A pill a day alone won’t prevent heart disease

“An apple a day will keep you away from the doctor.” “Take an aspirin and call me in the morning.” We all know these sayings and it looks like there might be one other one soon. If you had the choice to take a drug to stop heart disease, would you are taking it?

Recently, the FDA approved the addition of a preferred statin drug as a sign for heart disease prevention. 6.5 million people without cholesterol or heart disease problems are eligible for this preventive therapy. Some healthcare providers query whether it’s price giving patients this sort of preventive therapy. Will patients follow needed laboratory tests while taking the drug? Will patients persist with a low-fat, low-cholesterol, heart-healthy eating regimen, or will they see it as a possibility to eat whatever they need? Will patients take the initiative to get off the sofa and exercise frequently? What about potential negative effects of medicines? And the last query: can the patient afford this drug?

Regardless of your position on this issue, one thing is evident, each patient should be evaluated for this sort of preventive therapy on a person basis. As health care providers, we must be sure that patients understand that along with taking medications, they need to make other lifestyle changes needed to stop this disease. A pill a day alone won’t prevent heart disease.

Posted by Anne Dabrow Woods, MSN, RN, CRNP, ANP-BC