Posted on 01/28/2008 10:35:58 PM PST by neverdem
Statins are among the most prescribed drugs in the world, and there is no doubt that they work as advertised — that they lower not only cholesterol but also the risk for heart attack.
But in the fallout from the headline-making trial of Vytorin, a combination drug that was found to be no more effective than a simple statin in reducing arterial plaque, many people are asking a more fundamental question about statins in general: Do they prolong your life?
And for many users, the surprising answer appears to be no.
Some patients do receive significant benefits from statins, like Lipitor (from Pfizer), Crestor (AstraZeneca) and Pravachol (Bristol-Myers Squibb). In studies of middle-aged men with cardiovascular disease, statin users were less likely to die than those who were given a placebo.
But many statin users don’t have established heart disease; they simply have high cholesterol. For healthy men, for women with or without heart disease and for people over 70, there is little evidence, if any, that taking a statin will make a meaningful difference in how long they live.
“High-risk groups have a lot to gain,” said Dr. Mark H. Ebell, a professor at the University of Georgia who is deputy editor of the journal American Family Physician. “But patients at low risk benefit very little if at all. We end up overtreating a lot of patients.” (Like the other doctors quoted in this column, Dr. Ebell has no ties to drug makers.)
How is this possible, if statins lower the risk of heart attack? Because preventing a heart attack is not the same thing as saving a life. In many statin studies...
--snip--
One big concern is that the side effects of statins haven’t been well studied. Reported side effects include muscle pain, cognitive problems and impotence.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Carolyn
I call BS on this statement. Statins are probably THE most studied drug class in history. They have studies with 10's of thousands of participants over a period going back over a decade.
High cholesterol is a marker for heart disease. It's easy to measure, you can buy a home cholesterol meter for a reasonable price. There are people, that have high cholesterol and no heart disease. How do you find them? What is the cost and risk of those tests? Statins are relatively cheap and getting cheaper as more go off patent. It may make more sense to simply treat high cholesterol than go through what you need to to weed out the high cholesterol/non-heart disease folks. Statins overall are very safe and very well known drugs.
It's a judgment call. It's a scientific judgment call. So, if the MSM is opinining on science and on a scientific judgment call: Run away, run away!
It might still be diet, but not what you think.
There is a school of thought out there that posits that high insulin levels (caused by high levels of carbs and insulin resistance) cause inflammation in the arteries, causing greater production of cholesterol by the body to repair the damage it does (cholesterol is “body spackle”), thus driving cholesterol levels up.
On a low-fat diet I felt miserable, gained weight, and my cholesterol was in the 220s. They wanted to put me on a statin.
I went low carb, cut out all the starch and sugar and my cholesterol levels dropped like a rock - total is now 153. Triglycerides are 58. I also lost weight and my blood pressure dropped.
Dropping the carbs drops the level of insulin required to shove them into your cells and helps reverse insulin resistance.
I eat more meat, cheese, cream and fat than I did before (as well as a ton more vegetables! lots of nuts too) and my bloodwork is so much better. I feel better too.
I’m not convince that this works for everyone but I do believe that there is a significant subset of the population whose body chemistry is really carb unfriendly and who do much better on a higher protein and fat diet. I’m clearly one of them.
Something you might want to take a look at.....
LQ
Ditto here. With virtually no fat in my diet and a massive exercise program, my “bad” cholesterol was well over 200. With Zocor, I’m down to around 100, with no liver issues (tested) and no muscle issues to speak of.
Thanks nd. I’ve been prescribed these, and took the first 30 days, experiencing leg cramps; took the next 30 day supply over approximately two months; then stopped. My followup blood test (new doctor, new lab, BTW) showed me all clear.
I call BS on this statement.
I wouldn't be so quick. Remember Vioxx and Bextra? They were supposed to reduce gastrointestinal ulcers and bleeding in arthritis patients. They looked at total mortality and morbidity after the fact and found increased myocardial infarctions, i.e. what is commonly called a heart attack, and ischemic cardiovascular accidents, i.e. the predominant form of strokes. All that grief, or maybe a large portion of it may have been avoided if those folks took a baby aspirin an hour or two before they took those COX-2-inhibitors, but that's another issue.
The adverse effects of statins that were usually described were elevated liver enzymes and muscle pain and weakness. I've only heard about cognitive dysfunction just recently and only impotence with this Times article. The latter makes sense because statins inhibit cholesterol synthesis by the liver. Cholesterol forms the basic structure of the sex hormones.
"The reactions mentioned in these reports include depression, memory loss, confusion and aggressive reactions."
When I use PubMed, I use search strategies like the following: statins and (cognitive dysfunction or memory or amnesia)
Seems like you can't have it both ways. Good genes lead to good health - but not the tendency to be fat? I disagree - it's largely genetic whether your liver spews out cholesterol - or whether you are fat, or both.
Exactly! There is really no way to tell right now *what* a person's genetic makeup is. It MAY be that people with certain genotypes do far better with statins than others. It may be that those of other genotypes are really, seriously intolerant of refined (high glycemic-index) carbohydrates. One-size-fits-all may make no genetic sense.
There is a tiny percentage of people that have a genetic propensity for excessive weight. The rest are just making excuses.
The human body does not need as much sustenance as some people might think. We as a society eat way too much. We also eat way to much processed sugar and oils. There is a reason that heart disease and stroke in the U.S. began to increase exponentially at just after the turn of the century - when high fructose sugars and processed (and later polyunsaturated) cooking oils began to be promoted on the public. There are societies on earth whose diet consists of almost all animal fat and meats, but yet have a less likelihood of developing heart disease or stroke. But these same people, after immigrating to the U.S., grew fatter, and developed heart disease in much greater proportions than their homeland counterparts.
I didn’t mention this in my previous post, but another important factor in lowering your risk of heart disease and stroke is lowering your level of stress. We have much more of that in this country than many people do. We worry too much about stupid things. As that great philosopher, Larry the Cable Guy, once said in a 60 Minutes interview: “We need to get the thumb out of our mouths and quit whining.”
The greatest factors in the roots of heart disease or stroke are:
Overall sugar intake
Processed sugar intake
Processed oil intake (eat saturated fats and natural unrefined fats)
Overweight (no, in most cases it’s not genetic)
Smoking
Lack of real exercise
Stress
It’s not cholesterol.
High cholesterol has never killed anyone.
I would throw the stuff away and use Coenzyme Q 10 and other natural methods. One can never have too much info. Go to www.curezone.com. I know of a man who was wheelchair bound before he died because of statin drugs.
A lot of the dietary cholesterol concern was probably a fad that seemed like a good idea at the time but that had no empirical evidence supporting it. Recent studies show that Dietary adjustments make little difference in LDL. High LDL is almost entirely an internal metabolic problem that gets worse as you get older. Statins interfere with your body's production of cholesterol. So they attack the problem internally, not with diet, which doesn't work.
Well, many studies show that it isn’t the fat in our diets that is the culprit, it’s the carbs. People on high fat, high protein diets seem to do just fine.
With all the contradictory studies out there, it’s always a gamble to bet on the current wisdom. All too soon, it becomes the current myth.
Some studies also show that people with very low cholesterol levels are more susceptible to cancer.
I guess you just have to muddle through, make your decisions based on your own research, and see what happens.
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