People with high cholesterol are more likely to develop serious health conditions. Heart disease, for instance, can be attributed to having high cholesterol levels in the blood which is why doctors prescribe statin to some patients.

Statin can lower cholesterol level and reduce or slow down the buildup of plaque that can lead to potentially fatal heart attacks but while the drug is ideally prescribed to protect patients from the unwanted consequences of bad cholesterol in the body, it appears that some statin users use it as an excuse to indulge in food that they need to avoid.

Findings of a new study conducted by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) suggest that many statin users in America indulge in the kind and amount of food that can have health consequences.

For the study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine April 24, the researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to analyze the calorie and fat intake of more than 27,000 individuals from 1999 to 2010.

They found that the participants who take statins in 1999 to 2000 consume fewer calories and lesser fat than non-statin users. After the 2005-2006 period, however, the calorie consumption for both groups was almost the same. By 2009-2010, the caloric intake of statin users has increased by 9.6 percent from 10 years ago while non-statin users did not have any significant change in their calorie consumption during the same period.

Statin users also increased their fat intake by 14.4 percent while nonusers did not have significant change in their fat consumption. The BMI among statin users has likewise increased more compared with those of the nonusers suggesting that statin users may no longer be as conscientious with their diet now as it was a decade ago.

"Efforts aimed at dietary control among statin users may be becoming less intensive. The importance of dietary composition may need to be reemphasized for statin users," the researchers wrote.

Study author Takehiro Sugiyama, from the National Center for Global Health and Medicine in Japan, said that compared to statin users 10 years ago, those who take the cholesterol-lowering drug nowadays do not have the urgency to lessen their calorie and fat consumption or to lose weight. He said that eating more fat can undermine the effects of taking statins and being overweight can lead to diabetes which increases risks for stroke and cardiovascular diseases.