For women over 50 without any cardiovascular problems there is ZERO advantage of taking statins when it comes to mortality. I can back this up with studies. The longer version is that their mortality rate stays the same although they die of different cause (cancer vs. heart attack)
If it was me, I would choose heart attack.
Not what I was referring to but:
" The possible side effects of
statin therapy are diabetes mellitus, myopathy, and rhabdomyolysis, hepatotoxicity. The side effects of the treatment are more likely to occur in elderly patients, due to their multiple associated comorbidities and drugs that may interact with statins. In elderly people, the benefits and disadvantages of the treatment with statins should be put in balance, especially in those receiving high doses of statins."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6915405/
OK, I have found it, in the same link:
"elderly (between 66 and 75 years old), ....Primary prevention reduces the risk of stroke and myocardial infarction
but does not influence all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality.
So they die in the same numbers with statin or without statin.
For older than 75, the establishment disagrees:
"In patients more than 75 years old, only the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline recommends initiating statin treatment as primary prevention [
13]. On the other hand, the ACC/AHA and CCS guidelines provide that
for people above 75 years old there are few pieces of evidence to sustain statin treatment"
5. Mortensen M.B., Falk E. Primary prevention with statins in the elderly. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 2018;71:85–94. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2017.10.080. [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]