Calculate risk of having a heart attack or stroke within the next 10 years - use QRISK2

It takes seconds to calculate your risk: http://www.qrisk.org

New draft NICE guidelines may be ratified July 2014 recommending use of Statins if your risk of having a heart attack or stroke within the next 10 years is 10% (cf. currently 20%).

See the great interactive 'how statins work'. viz

1. Cholesterol is produced mainly in the liver. There is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Too much bad, LDL-cholesterol, however, can cause hardening of the arteries. 
2. The liver contains an enzyme called HMG-CoA reductase, which produces cholesterol ...
3. Statins replace the HMG-CoA that exists in the liver, thereby slowing down the cholesterol production process ...
4. The 'inhibition' of HMG-CoA enzyme by the statin has other effects, on top of reducing the amount of cholesterol produced. It also increases the production of LDL receptors, proteins which 'catch' the bad cholesterol and draw it into the liver cells to be broken down.

Modified by Chris Street from Guardian Feb 2014 http: //goo.gl/DRAo2R

Whilst NICE and Rory Collins are recommending use of Statins with 10% 10 year risk of heart attack or stroke, John Abramson, a clinician working at Harvard medical school claims his BMJ published analysis showed statins did not significantly reduce mortality in the 20% or 10% risk groups. (Guardian Feb 2014).