Posted on 09/03/2008 1:41:52 AM PDT by neverdem
When the Food and Drug Administration approved a new type of cholesterol-lowering medicine in 2002, it did so on the basis of a handful of clinical trials covering a total of 3,900 patients. None of the patients took the medicine for more than 12 weeks, and the trials offered no evidence that it had reduced heart attacks or cardiovascular disease, the goal of any cholesterol drug.
The lack of evidence has not stopped doctors from heavily prescribing that drug, whether in a stand-alone form sold as Zetia or as a combination medicine called Vytorin. Aided by extensive consumer advertising, sales of the medicines reached $5.2 billion last year, making them among the best-selling drugs in the world...
--snip--
Ezetimibe is in a similar situation. The medicine has been proved to lower patients’ LDL, or bad, cholesterol by 15 to 20 percent...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This isn't as bad as it sounds. Maybe the hypothesis of just lowering LDL-chlesterol will lower coronary artery disease was incorrect?
Take non-flush niacin and it will lower your cholesterol better than any prescribed drug .
Statins are a fraud and they will make the Phen-Phen lawsuits look like childs play eventually, IMHO.
Statins do reduce your LDL or bad cholesterol. However, there is no correlation between lowering your cholesterol and reducing your risk of heart attack or stroke. Half the people who die of HA or stroke have normal cholesterol. Americans have the lowest cholesterol since they have been keeping track due to statins but it has not changed the number of deaths due to cardiovascular disease.
So why foist statin on the public? Its a muli-tbillion dollar industry. Just like Vioxx was a multi-billion/year drug but now was exposed as dangerous. But, no doctor in a doc-in-box clinic ever questioned it due to kickbacks from drug manufacturers, until the deaths started.
There is too much collusion between the FDA and drug manufacturers that do too little testing of drugs before they hit the market to check their efficacy or safety.
Yes, all this is my opinion.
Because more than a few studies have shown that statins provide morbidity and mortality benefits with respect to coronary artery disease and , IIRC, ischemic cerebrovascular accidents, i.e. the more common form of stroke. Unfortunately, in subgroup analysis, those benefits are not found in all demographic cohorts, and the adverse effects can be considerable.
Scientists grow 'nanonets' able to snare added energy transfer
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
you might look at the following studies that did show overall reduction in mortality: in decending order
4S study, (scandinavian simvastatin survival study),
LIPID study(longterm intervention with Pravastatin in Ischemic Disease)
CARE study (Cholesterol and recurrent events trial)
WOSCOPS study (West of Scotland coronary prevention study group)..
some limits to 1yr or less on statins studies is that benefits are not as great as continued therapy studies ..
Even if total mortality is not reduced..few patients have
such severe side effects to statins as to have the need to withdraw therapy: Some medications or medical conditions interact and may increase risk of liver disease/myopathy
while on therapy. The FDA has considered making some statins available without a prescription.
Except for the people who go into anaphylactic shock from it.
Then again, 50% of people who die from heart attacks have high
cholesterol . Guess what the other 50% have .
“Half the people who die of HA or stroke have normal cholesterol.”
Also, one of the principal side effects from taking statins is dementia.
But I guess they can just prescribe another drug for that, right?
“the drop in cardiac deaths, strokes, across the world has been dramatic. “
But IIRC those effects are not due to lowered cholesterol, they are due to the blood thinning properties of the statins. There are safer ways to get thinner blood than with statins.
Also, the long-term Framingham study showed no difference in longevity of those who have lower cholesterol, in fact it showed the opposite.
Weak hearts?
Bad Genes .
Better medical treatment kept them alive longer but it was only a matter of time.
Because the Atkins Diet would be too effective - and bankrupt half the major political campaign contributors in the USA. ;)
“The FDA has considered making some statins available without a prescription.”
Sure, the FDA can make any drug available without a prescription, but that does not make the drug any less dangerous or effective.
Look at NSAID’s. The kill many Americans every year and they are freely available OTC. Tylenol is hepatotoxic and anyone can buy it.
In fact, OTC medications as a category are responsible for more than 150,000 hospitalizations every year, according to the Food and Drug Administration, and almost 1000 OTC medications have been linked to liver toxicity, which causes about 2000 deaths annually in the United States (Ford MD et al 2001).
I am cynical about the drug industry. Is it really necessary for women over the age of 65 to require 10 different medications daily according to Medicare?
American’s are over consumers of prescriptions compared to the rest of Western world and certainly the 3rd world. That would be fine, if you had a corresponding decrease in morbidity or mortality for the billions we spend out of pocket.
“Statins are not perfect, but I hope you would not advocate stopping them in at risk patients”
My point is that the whole paradigm is wrong. High cholesterol is not the issue with heart disease, and generally speaking, a medication that has side effects of dementia is not something that people should be taking.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.