WHY statins are a horribly weak and harmful way to prevent heart attacks....

Tuesday, 10-28-2014

Statins are so weak and harmful in fact that it’s disgraceful that they are still used much.

Yet many of the doctors who still prescribe them to people they won’t help have been given the information that statins are protective; and these doctors do mean well.

Why this huge disconnect between the verifiable facts

                                               and the belief these doctors have?

1.  Here’s the brief history:

When deaths from communicable disease dropped sharply from public health measures such as ensuring bacteria free drinking water and antibiotics when they still worked reliably, deaths from heart disease from heart attacks and strokes took over as the number one killers.

Worse, these events do often kill or disable people younger than 70 years old or even younger when they are still economically productive or even have children dependent on them!

People who will have these heart attacks have other measurable ways to predict risk we know now.

But right away it was clear that having LDL, low density lipoprotein, scores of over 160 tended to indicate high risk while under a 100 was low and under 70 likely desirable, particularly if other risk factors existed.

So statins were developed to lower LDL cholesterol.  And they usually worked to lower LDL cholesterol.

Then it was found that for every 100 people who took statins fewer people got heart attacks.

This looks persuasive doesn’t it?

So, if that’s the case, why do I and many other informed people think statins belong on the scrap heap of medical history?

As you might imagine the evidence must be pretty strong to say so.  And, it is so persuasive it goes beyond strong. 

If it were a football game, the score would read other methods 63, statins zero!

Why is that? 

The three reasons are these. 

Statins in most people produce more harmful and productivity reducing harm per 100 people who take them than the heart attacks they prevent.

The alternative methods prevent something like ten times as many heart attacks as statins do.

But the reason for that score is simple. 

Even though statins reduce heart attacks a bit, they have enough side effects their net reduction of deaths is zero!

The effective methods ARE dramatically more effective at cutting deaths from any cause – including deaths from heart disease and both kinds of stroke.  They DO that well versus the zero effect of statins.

Imagine going to two mechanics. 

One says that there is a small chance the problem you brought your car in with will get better but will come back or cause other problems you’ll have to suffer with or pay more to get rid of and the car won’t go any more miles before you have to retire it from the repair in that shop.

The other says that you will have to do part of the work yourself; but your car will gradually improve, the problem very likely is gone for good, and your car will get dramatically more miles and perform well for years once the work is done and maintained.

For heart disease and related deaths what is the method that gets these better results?

It has two parts:

A.  STOP eating and drinking heart attack starters and exposing yourself to tobacco smoke and nicotine for very long or at all.  Why not turn off the causes!?

B. Add the lifestyle proven by itself to cut deaths from all causes, and deaths from heart attack and stroke in particular.  Then add the upgrades that improve the other indicators of heart disease or bad health that also cut the death rate from all causes. 

The statistics on doing all the parts of these methods show that they add decades of healthy life.  You don’t just avoid disease and live longer, your life and productivity stay good for decades longer!

At www.iehealth.blogspot.com last Thursday, 10-23-2014, I wrote an article following up research showing that these methods even doing each one moderately well cut heart attacks by at least seven to one,

“Simple ways if you do them all to slash heart risks….”

The studies of what happens when all of these methods are done well on deaths from all causes and from heart attacks and both kinds of stroke are astounding.  They literally can cut deaths from all causes by about 63%.  And most of that is from reducing deaths from heart attacks and strokes although they cut deaths from cancer too.

So that’s why to use the dramatically more effective methods instead of statin drugs.

But that’s only half the story.

Taking statin drugs is harmful too!

Am I saying that besides other methods being dramatically more effective, statins also do MORE harm than good?  YES!

That’s what the data and reports from people taking them show.  Some people avoid these problems because they take a lower dose or they take a statin their genetics handle better.

But here are three sources for that information with my comments:

Dr David Brownstein

"Most of your cholesterol is made in your liver. And the statin drug works by poisoning a natural enzyme in your liver that facilitates cholesterol production.

But this same enzyme also helps your body make the vitamin-like substance CoQ10. And CoQ10 is vital to the energy your heart needs to pump blood.

CoQ10 is also essential to the energy generated by the mitochondria in your cells. That’s literally your energy factory — for your heart and your whole body. And statin drugs are poisoning the enzyme that helps make it!

....That’s why people taking statin drugs suffer fatigue, feel lousy, lose their sex drive, and don’t think as clearly."

Dr Al Sears:

“....for every 60 people who take it, most only get the awful side effects and none of the supposed benefit. 60 people would have to take a statin drug for at least five years for the probability that just one person wouldn’t have a non-fatal heart attack.

And what about the other kind -- fatal heart attacks? Not a single heart attack death would be prevented.”

Research reported about a month ago in Medical News Today:

Besides causing type 2 diabetes, statins tend to make you fatter besides!

This paper suggests that to make room for these two effects patients should quit smoking, and eat better and still take statins.

If you know how to get patients to quit smoking, and eat better -- both stopping heart attack starters and adding protective foods, you no longer need the weak effect of the statins! 

If you do that, all the costs and side effects and harms of statins become NOT NEEDED and a horrible idea to expose patients to!

Modest effect of statins on diabetes risk and bodyweight related to mechanism of

action

http://mnt.to/l/4qQz

The mechanism by which statins increase the risk of type 2 diabetes has been

investigated in a large-scale analysis from an international team led by

researchers from UCL and the University of...

The key question of course is how doctors who have been trained on drug use and medical devices and surgery and the like can help people make these lifestyle upgrades and succeed in doing it.

For quitting smoking, the research has been done for a first step. 

If every doctor with heart indicators who also smokes either regular or eCigarettes (as the nicotine also causes heart disease and can trigger heart attacks) actually writes a prescription to quit and gives it to the patient,  the data show some actually quit successfully.  When that’s not done, few patients make the effort.

When effective programs such as those we are working on to help people quit successfully without fat gain become available, it will of course work better.

But just writing the prescription now is far more effective than not doing so!

The same is true for not drinking soft drinks or EVER eating foods containing hydrogenated oils and effective but doable exercise and the other methods.

Why not write down a prescription with?

 “Hydrogenated oils build up in your body if you eat any amount every day and they cause the increase of the small particle LDL that causes heart disease. 

Your prescription is to read labels and stop eating the foods that contain them!”

Just writing those two prescriptions available now, will prevent more heart attacks and death than statins do AND have none of the side effects!