Study: Older Adults Underrepresented in Cholesterol Drug Trials

A study published in JAMA Network Open suggests that randomized cholesterol drug trials least represent older adults and women, who are the ones most likely to be affected by heart disease, reports Greater Milwaukee Today . Older adults are more likely than their young peers to have heart and vascular disease. The researchers analyzed trends in the types of 485,409 people enrolled in 60 studies from 1990 to 2018, revealing that older adults and women are still vastly underrepresented in lipid-lowering therapy trials compared to their disease cost. The percentage of trial participants 65 and older rose from 32 percent from the early 1990s to 42 percent in the most recent trials, yet only slightly more than 30 of the 60 trials conducted reported findings specifically for older adults. "Although we did see an improvement over the years in representation of women and older adults, that progress was rather modest," said Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Professor Erin Michos. "Clearly more still needs to be done to shift the balance to represent our patient demographics."