How about a side of Crestor with your cheeseburger?

Sounds far-fetched, but scientists in England say it might make sense for fast food joints to dispense cholesterol-lowering statin drugs to their customers.

In a paper published in the current issue of the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr. Darrel Francis and colleagues calculate that the reduction in cardiovascular risk offered by a statin is enough to offset the increased heart attack risk that comes from from eating a cheeseburger and a milkshake.

“Statins don’t cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries,” Dr. Francis, a researcher at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, said in a written statement. “It’s better to avoid fatty food altogether. But we’ve worked out that in terms of your likelihood of having a heart attack, taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same degree as a fast food meal increases it.”