Statins
Prescription · Evidence and recent research
Notify me when meaningful evidence changes.
Where things stand
Statins lower cholesterol and can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in appropriately selected adults. Their value depends on existing disease, overall cardiovascular risk and age; evidence for starting treatment in older adults without cardiovascular disease is less certain. They are preventive medicines for particular risks, not a general treatment for ageing. Source ↗ Recently: No update dated within the past 30 days is recorded in our collection. This describes our coverage, not a conclusion that the wider research is unchanged.
AI-written overview · not expert-reviewed · Background sources checked Sep 23, 2026 · Recent updates cover the last 30 days of this collection. A new report does not automatically change the evidence assessment.
⚠ Prescription or off-label use
Prescription medicine. Do not start or stop statin therapy without clinical advice.
Background and coverage
USPSTF: statins for prevention ↗
- Regulatory status
- Approved for indication
- Availability
- Prescription only
- Category
- Prescription
- Human results verified here
- 1
Evidence collection is needs review. 0 approved assessments; 47 assessments awaiting review; 2 published studies with verified results. Safety: not assessed.
Recorded evidence activity (experimental)
A numeric breakdown will be available after baseline review. Safety is not yet assessed.
What changed
Evidence events affecting this intervention
Statin initiation after colorectal cancer treatment associated with modest mortality reduction in cohort study.
In an 88,516-person Korean cohort study using target trial emulation to minimize bias, patients who initiated statins within 6 months of colorectal cancer treatment had slightly lower CRC-specific mortality (HR 0.95) and all-cause mortality (HR 0.96) compared to those who did not initiate statins. The absolute 60-month difference was small: 1.1 percentage points for CRC-specific mortality and 2.4 percentage points for all-cause mortality. The protective effect was substantially smaller than reported in conventional observational analyses, suggesting earlier studies overstated benefits due to time-related and censoring biases.
Metformin has extensive preclinical evidence but limited clinical proof of geroprotective effects in systematic review.
This systematic review examined pharmacological interventions targeting aging pathways, including metformin, from literature published January 2010–May 2026. Metformin and rapamycin had among the most extensive preclinical and translational evidence, but the review found that clinical evidence for broadly applicable geroprotection remains limited. The authors emphasize a substantial gap between mechanistic plausibility and clinically validated geroprotection in humans.
Assessment history
The 25 most recent recorded changes, including corrections and backfill
Human studies with verified results
Animal and mechanistic evidence
No preclinical studies tracked yet