The Medical Freedom Channel

“A new study has found that seeing the buildup of plaque in their own arteries is the incentive patients need to comply with doctor’s orders. The study, conducted at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) and published in the journal Atherosclerosis, found that patients who see more plaque in their arteries (coronary artery calcium) tend to be more likely to stay on statin therapy than those who do not get visual proof of their risk of heart attack. Cholesterol agents such as statins have been used to reduce cardiac morbidity and mortality, but patients are not inclined to stay on the medication. In most studies, compliance is less than 50 percent after one year. Authors of the new study found that over a period of 3.6 years, patients who saw visual proof of more plaque after undergoing an electron beam tomography (EBT) scan of their heart were much more likely to comply with prescribed statin therapy. In fact, compliance among those whose scans found the most plaque exceeded 90 percent.” (04/27/06)