Pluses and Minuses: How Math Solves Our Problems

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e., minus) appeared for the first time in Luca Pacioli's mathematics compendium, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità, first printed and published in Venice in 1494.

The case for statins in people at very high risk of heart attack or stroke - for instance, people who have already had a heart attack or stroke or most people with type 2 diabetes- was already proven. We are often frustrated when we hear students say "Two minuses make a plus", because it shows a rote-learned phrase that is often misapplied.On the one hand, there are the passionate advocates, who believe statins should be, if not quite added to the tap water, certainly given to more than the seven million people in the UK who take them today. I have 35-year-olds with a higher risk than this, because they smoke and are obese; and 60-year-olds whose 10-year risk is half this.

If you're otherwise healthy and not on other medicines, there's a good chance that you won't have any side-effects, but up to one in 10 people taking statins have minor side-effects and a far smaller number have severe ones. It showed that for every 1 mmol/L that 'bad' LDL cholesterol was lowered using statins, the risk of heart attack, related surgery or stroke was reduced by 21% and the risk of dying by 12%. As with so many other scare stories, there is a grey area in the middle - and more agreement among the experts than the headlines would suggest.National guidelines suggest we should be considering statin treatment for anyone with a 10-year risk of heart attack or stroke that's higher than 20%. Egton Medical Information Systems Limited has used all reasonable care in compiling the information but make no warranty as to its accuracy.