The Heart Protection Study established that statins should be used to treat cardiovascular risk, not just to lower cholesterol in people in whom it was over a certain point. This cost-effectiveness analysis from the same study comes up with prices for saving hearts and minds with simvastatin. For most of the people currently treated with statins, the drugs actually seem to save money - for those whose cardiovascular risk is too low to make them a currently indicated treatment, the cost per life year saved still comes out at a remarkably low figure (less than £2500 here). What we don't know, and can't really extrapolate so easily from the Heart Protection Study, is whether people whose age and risk are so low should actually be on statins at all. Full article