Healthcare providers sometimes use a calcium score to help decide whether to recommend treatment with a statin.
However, in some people, the calcium score increases with statin therapy.
This is a point of controversy and concern amongcardiologists(heart experts).
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This article explains why statins are used and what their relationship to your calcium score may mean.
What Do Calcium Scores Mean?
A calcium score of zero, measured in the coronary arteries, means there is no identifiable disease.
These plaques can grow large enough to partially block the artery and produce symptoms, such asanginaor claudication.
Plaques are deposits of several materials, includinglipids, inflammatory cells, fibrotic cells, and calcium.
As part of this process, the plaques may become more calcifiedand thus, the calcium score goes up.
While this theory is not settled science, at this point it best fits the available evidence.
If calcium is present, atherosclerosis is presentand aggressive lifestyle changes are in order.
Statin therapy and other inventions, like taking a daily aspirin, may be prescribed.
But once statin therapy has begun, interpreting later calcium scans becomes more of a problem.
2019 Sep 10;140(11):e596-e646.
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2018;13(9):e0203702.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0203702
NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.Atherosclerosis.
