New guidelines that may increase statin use are a BAD idea....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 11-19-2013

There are several new guidelines for statin use and some even make some sense.

But some of them redefine statins from a specialty drug that reduces LDL cholesterol and inflammation to a generic heart protector that very large numbers of people should take who do not take them now.

One cardiologist with a good understanding of effective heart protection said he saw an estimate that the number of people who have been taking statins in the United States, 45 million, could easily go to 70 million!

I’ve seen evidence that statins are a remarkably bad and limited drug!

I think that evidence strongly suggests that the number of people in the United States taking them should be less than ONE million!

So you can imagine my reaction to having the problem get that much worse!

Here are the most important of these reasons not to use statins for most people who now take them.

First, the doctors prescribing them already do NOT know this key information needed to qualify them to do so.  These guidelines do NOT account for these facts either. 

1.  Several years ago the Berkeley Heart Lab discovered that measures of heart risk factors were remarkably more diverse and numerous than had previously been known and that there are large individual differences, many of them genetic, between people in these readings and how they respond to heart drugs and statins in particular.

They found that most people get little benefit from statins and that for every 100 such people taking statins only one heart attack is prevented.  They did find that some people did get decent protection from statins; but they are a minority.

That test then cost about $600 and is likely more like $700 or more now.  So this wasn’t much used.

BUT, far worse, almost no doctors ever heard this work existed! 

The statin drug makers certainly didn’t publicize it!

But those facts remain!  And, I’m indebted to cardiologist Arthur Agatson who wrote an article saying that a genetic test for just this single difference is only $150 now.

That means that every single prescription for statin drugs given to people who have NOT had this $150 test show they are in that minority is very poor medical practice indeed.

If doctors were properly informed of this, it would be malpractice.  (To be fair, if doctors were that informed many if not most of them would test first.  They simply don’t know enough to qualify to prescribe statins now.)

2.  But why is that such a bad idea and such poor medical practice?

It is even worse than you might imagine in your worst nightmares!

Here’s why:

a) Good studies show that 9% of the people given statins develop type 2 diabetes.  

But type 2 diabetes jumps the risk of heart attack, doubling it for men and quadrupling it for women PLUS causing blindness, and mental decline, and foot amputation, and MUCH higher medical care costs.   You can hardly cut excessive health care costs if you use drugs that cause over NINE times as much harm as the good they do.

This means for example, that if 25 million new people take statins, 2.25 million of them will get type 2 diabetes in addition to those who now develop it from other causes.  That will cost millions more dollars just as our medical care costs are so high they are harming our economy.

b)  Other than stopping eating and drinking foods that are proven heart attack starters such as hydrogenated oils and all the others  --

The MOST protective action people can take to prevent heart attacks and strokes and mental decline AND type 2 diabetes is to do quite vigorous exercise, even if in brief sessions, most days of every week.

People do need to know how to begin doing and how to do these exercises safely.  But that is extremely doable.

And research shows that the more consecutive years people do this the better their protection gets!

It couldn’t be any clearer!

If there is a drug that harms people who do those exact kinds of exercises or even kills some of them, it should be a black box drug with very limited use.

Statins have exactly that effect!  The evidence is in.  The facts show that statins do exactly that.

The research was reported in a New York Times article.  Even worse, the better job people do on these exercises, the more harm statins do them!  This is a horrible state of affairs in my view.

This means that a strong case can be made that even people for whom the genetic tests show statins can be protective, they would be well served to use such exercise and other methods to get this protection – and NOT take statins. 

(The good news is that some statins do this less.  Those can be taken in lower doses and combined with dietary upgrades and other protective methods.  And, there is research suggesting that people who take 200 to 400 mg a day of ubiquinol may avoid some or all of this side effect.)

Once again, doctors rarely have heard of this and yet write hundreds of statin prescriptions anyway.

(Older people who are bed-ridden and have already had a heart attack or have very high risk factors and test in the group that statins help may be the one group for whom statins are a good idea.)

What then do doctors do who want to help their patients avoid heart attacks if they know not to prescribe statins?

There are two answers.

They need to learn the lifestyle upgrades that ARE quite effective in doing that and tell their patients to begin doing them.  (See our recent list of exactly such upgrades and why to make them in our related post a few days ago on why most people do NOT need to take blood pressure drugs because those who do those upgrades already HAVE the protection they need.)

The second thing they need is to have an effective and affordable service that helps people learn and begin those lifestyle upgrades.  We are working on that now and DO plan to offer it to doctors. 

In the same way doctors delegate to statin drugs now with these poor results, we think they can delegate the far more protective lifestyle upgrades to us or a similar service.

So there is hope for the future even with the dreadful news now.