No, it didn't. They measured the changes in thickness of sections of the carotid arteries as a surrogate for coronary artery atherosclerosis.
Beware of pdf links.
There's free open access to the NEJM articles and editorials in question.
I’m taking enalapil and zetia which were the separate generic components of another drug whose name I can’t remember.
Can anyone out there make any sense of this article for me?
Why should I be afraid of PDF links, especially on a legitimate site?
Those with very high cholesterol should use guar gum, which is a common food additive. It is a water soluble fiber with the odd ability to bind with bile. A major component of bile is cholesterol.
A 50/50 mix with non-water soluble fiber, like Metamucil psyllium, or just psyllium husks, combines with the guar gum so that a whole bunch of bile is flushed out of the system.
There is an additional benefit in that the body recycles bile for re-use, but the bile tends to build up contaminants like metals, that it is not bad to get rid of as well.
Taking a guar gum/Metamucil mix twice a week for a month might drop a sky high cholesterol down into the normal range.
It would seem to be a better methodology than using statins, which alter the normal body processes, in that it just uses natural body processes.
They used to sell guar gum powder in health food stores, but it is now only available by mail order.
Insert here the typical caution about taking any kind of medical advice off the Internet. Guar gum is a nutritional supplement, not a medicine.
I still feel that a high HDL is much more beneficial than a low LDL. In my family all the males have a high total cholesterol but we also all have a very high HDL. I’m 44, my father 68, and my grandfather is 98. All of us have been told by our doctors that we should be on cholesterol medicines. None of us are, and none of us has ever had heart problems.
OMG! What to do, what to do?
ping
100 years from now they will look back, and snicker we'd been better off with leeches!
Doctors practice medicine, ie they put their faith in drugs. I hope someday they will learn how to help promote health via more natural means, and will learn to look at the big picture rather than just lab numbers.
A very good friend who knew a lot about medical research told me the studies that linked cholsesterol and hardening of the arteries were not authoratative, the medical profession ran with them anyway. He thought it was mostly genetic that many people can eat/ have high cholesterol and never have hardening of the arteries/ heart disease. However, cholesterol might still be a contributing factor to those predisposed to those conditions.
bttt
Strange article. I too wonder if the two Vytorin components taken separately work. We are told that the drug did great at accomplishing its risk factor reduction. Why blame the drug if the problem lies with faulty cause and effect analysis on the disease itself?
bump
High cholesterol is over-rated as a problem. As usual the US medical and drug manufacturers are far more worried about altering symptoms then they are about fixing the real problem. Proper diet and exercise is far more healthier than the drugs that get prescribed.