Half of the US Citizens with High Cholesterol Are Off Their Drugs

STATES CHRONICLE – As more and more Americans are struggling with heart-related conditions, the goal of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is to get 65% of Americans to actually take care of their LDL levels, and also hopefully prevent one million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. Well, a long road is ahead of them, as half of the US citizens with high cholesterol are off their drugs.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, only about half the population of the United States is actually on their anti-cholesterol medicine, with some disparities between ethnicities.

With 58 percent of the USA’s white population taking them, 47 percent of the Hispanic population and 46 percent of the African-Americans, the anti-cholesterol drugs are doing surprisingly poor on the market, given their actual benefits.

Dr. Carla Mercado, researcher in the CDC’s Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention unit, claims in an interview that high cholesterol is a major problem for United States citizens, as one in three deaths is related to a heart condition preventable by lowering one’s cholesterol. The enormous number, over 800,000 deaths every year, is on the rise, and it will continue to be so until the threat is taken seriously.

Over 78 million American citizens over the age of 21 should be taking medicine for their increased LDL cholesterol levels; however 55.5 percent of the affected 78 million were on cholesterol-lowering drugs, 46.6 percent reported making some lifestyle changes in order to improve their health, 37.1 percent were both making lifestyle changes and taking their medication, while a whopping 35.5 percent are not doing anything about their health issues.

The reason for this is baffling for the researchers over at CDC. They come up with new guidelines every year, trying to recommend the medicine to everyone who needs it. Not only that, but they also recommend some lifestyle changes to those who suffer from a high cholesterol level; however, people simply refuse to take their drugs.

One of the most recent theories about the lack of cooperation with the medical system regarding the population’s increasingly high cholesterol is that people are afraid of change. It might sound like a poor explanation, but keep reading, it makes sense.

It’s speculated that since the cholesterol medicine comes along with advice on how to lead a healthy lifestyle, people would rather not do either than start working out, or going to the doctor and admitting to taking the medicine and not working out.

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