Another misguided attempt to get more people on statin drugs....

Today's Post: Friday, 10-1-2010

Last Monday, 9-27-2010, Reuters had this headline:

“Giving more people statins is cost-effective.”

There was a study that found that statins were protective to some degree against heart attacks by lowering excessive chronic inflammation not just by lowering LDL cholesterol that was too high.

So, since the drug companies are not totally dumb, they had someone check out whether or not people with normal or almost OK LDL cholesterol but high inflammation as measured by the HSCRP test who took statins might get fewer heart attacks than similar people who did not. And, the first study found a small but real effect and some of the people who had high HSCRP scores and relatively OK LDL scores who took statins did seem to avoid getting a heart attack.

But giving people HSCRP tests regularly to check their inflammation levels costs a few bucks.

So, this study looked at things like a parent who had a serious or fatal heart attack, or people who were obese, or who smoked, or who had type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure -- the classic heart attack risk factors. And, indeed they found that giving statins to these people without bothering to test them for HSCRP first did seem to prevent some heart attacks.

And, you didn’t have to pay for HSCRP testing. They reasoned it would save money to just give all these people statins.

These researchers either don’t know their field very well or are not bright enough to pass a simple logic test or were paid to do this study by statin makers.

The ignored a few things or simply didn’t know them.

Other research has found that statin drugs are less than 3 % effective. Of the 100 people who otherwise would have gotten heart attacks, those who take statins might get 97.

But about 3% of the statin takers got cataracts in their eyes who would otherwise have not done so.

Many of the people who take statins feel extra tired and de-energized or as if they just became 30 years older and in failing health.

In addition, many statins takers get serious muscle damage. Others get very serious memory loss. And, others, more than is generally known, get congestive heart failure.

So, statin drugs not only cost money directly. But they cost a good bit of money to treat the other medical problems they cause.

When you add the decrease in quality of life to that mix from the energy sapping effects alone and the very low effectiveness of statins to that equation, the logic seems inexorable to me that giving more people statins will sharply increase costs.

Further, it will do so dramatically more than just saving a few bucks on not doing diagnostic HSCRP tests.

But the worst is this.

Statin drugs are a poor preventive for heart attacks largely because they completely leave turning off the underlying causes and using safer and more effective methods out of the equation.

Taking statins for many people is like having a large building with a crew of people going around starting fires and sending in one person with a small fire extinguisher to try to save the building.

The wonder is that it ever works at all.

A. For example, what causes high HSCRP readings?

The list is both long AND every one of the parts is fixable.

1. Eating omega 6 oils made from grains such as soy, corn, safflower, and canola.

2. Eating omega 6 directly by eating excessive amounts of grain based foods. (Further, every serving of food made with refined grains causes heart disease in other ways such as boosting triglyceride levels and blood sugar levels and obesity.)

3. Eating omega 6 indirectly by consuming the fat of animals fed only on grains when grains are NOT their native diet.

4. NOT getting an adequate amount of omega 3 oils in either food or supplement form.

5. NOT getting regular exercise most days of every week.

6. Taking such bad care of teeth and gums that the body is inflamed from fighting the gum disease bacteria this bad care helps to grow.

7. Eating foods made with hydrogenated omega 6 oils which also causes heart disease directly by increasing small particle LDL.

8. Being exposed to tobacco smoke.

Since these are the CAUSES of excess inflammation, and turning them all off is known to be effective and to have other major health benefits, wouldn’t it make more sense to reverse THOSE causes and leave the side effects of the statin drugs on the shelf?

To me THAT would be the way to save money!

Eating vegetables and more moderate amounts of only whole grain foods and eating wild caught fish and occasionally grass fed beef and using extra virgin olive oil is doable. And by buying far less packaged foods and also saving money by eating beans and lentils and very lowfat dairy for part of your protein foods this way of eating is quite doable.

Just a few days ago we posted on how to easily prevent gum disease, so that too is doable.

Getting regular exercise is a good bit more challenging. But once you learn how, even 15 minutes 5 or 6 times a week is dramatically more effective than doing nothing at all. And by doing exercise at home first thing in the morning, it’s more doable than most people realize. You can also find time by exercising instead of watching TV or even WHILE watching TV. I even found a way to get five minutes a day of exercise at work by doing five one minute sessions each day.

B. What about statin’s ability to lower LDL cholesterol?

Since some of the LDL removed is the dangerous small particle LDL that actually is small enough to stick in the molecular cracks in your artery walls that has some protective effect.

But what causes your body to have too much of the dangerous small particle LDL in the first place? What if there were safer ways to lower them?

Wouldn’t it make much better sense to remove the causes and use those safer and less expensive ways to lower dangerous small particle LDL instead of using statin drugs?

Yes. And the heart disease protection is dramatically better too!

So, what causes high levels of dangerous small particle LDL?

The two biggest causes of too much dangerous small particle LDL are NOT getting regular exercise, particularly vigorous exercise; and eating foods made with hydrogenated omega 6 oils.

In fact, on exercise, a recent study found that the longer you persist in doing it regularly the more protection you get from it.

In addition, we have some extra information in this area. Researchers at Harvard apparently were the ones who discovered that while you can use an expensive test to test for the level of the dangerous small particle LDL directly the ratio of HDL to triglycerides is a very accurate way to measure the level of dangerous small particle LDL indirectly.

But that means that if you find things that increase HDL and those that lower triglycerides and the reverse, you can have very strong if indirect effects on your level of the dangerous small particle LDL in your system.

Extra virgin olive oil either increases HDL or leaves it the same while saturated fats tend to increase LDL and omega 6 oils lower HDL.

Eating food high in choline such as egg yolks or taking choline supplements increases HDL.

Tobacco smoke lowers HDL. So, do everything in your power to avoid it.

Drinking red wine in moderation increases HDL.

But the really powerful discovery recently is that a diet heavy on refined grains and sugars both lowers HDL and very powerfully increases triglycerides.

Guess what? That means eating this way is a near certain way to cause heart disease. (It also tends to cause type 2 diabetes and obesity which cause or worsen heart disease.)

Why bother to medicate people who eat this way with statin drugs? It’s a total waste of money.

If people want to avoid heart attacks have them eat more natural foods instead. And, if to save health care money, governments want to make eating this way far less likely, adding very high taxes on these foods is a proven way to cut consumption.

Lastly, there are two far safer and effective ways to lower LDL and the dangerous small particle LDL than taking statin drugs.

Taking sterol supplements is almost as effective as taking statin drugs in lowering LDL levels. (Sterols are also added to foods such as margarine and refined grain bread. But since these are harmful foods for your heart, taking the supplements directly is far safer and a better heart protector.)

Note that since taking sterol supplements is virtually side effect free, costs less than even generic statin drugs will cost and there are these other ways to lower the dangerous small particle LDL, taking statin drugs and risking their side effects is an unnecessary and an inferior choice.

But there is even better news yet. What if there was a supplement with a some side effects in very large doses but few in smaller doses that even in smaller doses lowers the dangerous small particle LDL better than statin drugs?

What if the Berkeley Heart Lab found that of all the genetic patterns in people where heart disease is concerned, all of them but one was MORE protected by this supplement than by taking statin drugs?

Not only that, what if this supplement also cost far less than statin drugs?

Why pay more for more people to take statin drugs and them pay more for the resulting side effects?

Wouldn’t it make MUCH more sense to suggest people turn off these causes and take this supplement instead?

It certainly would! And, by about 100 to one too!

This supplement exists. It’s the supplement niacin.

Mercifully, since the science on this is pretty conclusive, many of the better cardiologists now know to suggest niacin instead of statin drugs.

Apparently virtually all these facts were NOT known to these researchers or they were paid to ignore them.

But the bottom line is their conclusion is bunk. It’s false and worthless.

The only good news in this is that gradually some doctors are learning more about these superior alternatives.