The Cholesterol Scam

[www.treelight.com]

Great article Peggy..............thanx

Who is Eric Armstrong, the man who wrote this article? How does he make is living?

Do we know his pedigree?

He draws a lot of conclusions in this article without much to back them up. Seems to me that there is a lot of medical evidence, double blind studies, etc., over the years that prove the longevity value of statins.

Like with fluoride, radiation from power lines, etc., if there was any proof of the negative effect of statins, every personal injury attorney in the US would have class action suits filed on all the deep pockets drug companies. I don't know of any at this time.

Gordon

Gordon:

There was a big class action lawsuit against one of them. Now I'll have to look for it. Maybe someone else knows. I'll google around.

Pam

PS: My mother, my best girlfriend and my brother in law all developed Rhabdomyolysis from statin drugs.

Huge class action Baycol. People died from it. My mother had rhabdomyolysis so bad that her using turned tea colored from so much muscle wasting. Her shoulder was wasting away and she had to have physical therapy to get over it.

Just Google Baycol Lawsuit

My mother has had bad reactions to Mevacor, Prevacol, Tricor, Crestor.

My brother in law presented with left neck pain and, in a panic his doctor sent him for a heart catherization thinking it was occluded coronary arteries, even though a he had a negative coronary angiogram only about a year prior. I told him not to do the heart catherization, but he listened to his doctor instead. His coronaries were clear and they finally discontinued his statin drug at my insistance. His pain was gone in 2 days. His insurance had to pay for a heart catherization - plus he was put through all that pain and risk for nothing.

Pam

Pam. Thanks for the reference. I notice that Bayer has paid to settle a bunch of claims and hopefully your relatives participated in getting some recompense for their suffering.

I also notice that Baycol was pulled from the shelves in 2001 but the rest of the statins are going stronger than ever so it must have been something unique about Baycol.

Gordon

Deaths reported from Crestor also. *Note, I've only looked at 3 statin drugs.

Kidney failere and Rhabdomyolysis.

[www.injuryboard.com]

Gordon - Consider reading the book by Duane Graveline MD about his experiences with Lipitor.... aptly named "Lipitor - The Thief of Memory" if you doubt there are problems with statins. He was a NASA space doc who suffered from transient global amnesia as a result of taking Lipitor.

While I can't lay my fingers on it right now, there are definitely studies that indicate there is no improved longevity from taking statins. I just read a summary the other day. When I find it, I'll post the name of the study.

I also heard an audio presentation by a research doctor from Germany who spoke at the Weston Price Foundation Conference on Cholesterol back in 2002 or 04, who had sorted through all of the studies but came up with no proof that using statins increased longevity; but he did come up with a list of harm done.

There is also a great deal of information written by Peter Langsjoen, MD and Uffe Ravnskoff, MD about the detrimental effects of statins and the fact they do not prevent people from dying of heart attacks.

Two sites that give an extensive amount of information are

www.statinalert.org and www.thincs.org


[from thincs]

THINCS´ members are deeply disturbed by the ever-increasing pressure to lower blood cholesterol levels, and the underlying commercial interests that have distorted scientific research in this area. THINCS warns that statins have been excessively ‘hyped’ by the pharmaceutical industry and medical opinion leaders who have, unfortunately, become little more than paid advertorials.



"These drugs have been shown to produce an alarming array of side effects," states Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, THINCS Chairman. "Furthermore, the public and medical profession do not realize that statins only benefit a small and select portion of the population."

Ravnskov and his colleagues worldwide point out that in the elderly, in women of all ages and in men without heart disease, cholesterol-lowering measures have not prevented a single death in any trial. Even in the highest male risk groups for heart disease, statin treatment resulted in 0.5 % fewer deaths per year only, and this small benefit was found in the most positive of all trials.

Other major statin trials, e.g. ALLHAT showed no benefit at all, a fact that has been effectively buried.


=====

www.thincs.org

The great tragedy of Science-the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."
(Thomas Huxley, 1825-1895)

"The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement"
(Karl R. Popper, 1902-1994)


For decades, enormous human and financial resources have been wasted on the cholesterol campaign, more promising research areas have been neglected, producers and manufacturers of animal food all over the world have suffered economically, and millions of healthy people have been frightened and badgered into eating a tedious and flavorless diet or into taking potentially dangerous drugs for the rest of their lives.

As the scientific evidence in support of the cholesterol campaign is non-existent, we consider it important to stop it as soon as possible.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) is a steadily growing group of scientists, physicians, other academicians and science writers from various countries. Members of this group represent different views about the causation of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, some of them are in conflict with others, but this is a normal part of science. What we all oppose is that animal fat and high cholesterol play a role.

The aim with this website is to inform our colleagues and the public that this idea is not supported by scientific evidence; in fact, for many years a huge number of scientific studies have directly contradicted it.
=============

Here it is.... It's the ALLHAT study - that can be referenced as listed below

"Major Outcomes in Moderately Hypercholesterolemic, Hypertensive Patients Randomized to Pravastatin vs Usual Care: The Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT-LLT)," Probstfield JL, Davis BR, et al, JAMA, December 18, 2002;288(23):2998-3007.

10,355 ambulatory patients 55 years or older with LDL cholesterol between 120 and 189 mg/dl and triglycerides lower than 350 mg/dl were randomized to take pravastatin or usual care - 5170 vs 5185 respectively.


After a mean follow-up of 4.8 years, it was found that pravastatin did not reduce either all-cause mortality or coronary heart disease significantly when compared with usual care in older patients with well-controlled hypertension and moderately elevated LDL cholesterol.

Sorry about the misspelling of Dr. Ravnskov.... not koff.

Note this web article as well....


New cholesterol guidelines for converting healthy people into patients
Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

(Feel free to publish this site anywhere, but don´t forget to tell from where it comes)

In the May 16 issue (2001) of the Journal of the American Medical Association an expert panel from the National Cholesterol Education Program has published new guidelines for "the detection, evaluation, and treatment of high blood cholesterol" (read the paper). Their writing seems to be an attempt to put most of mankind on cholesterol-lowering diets and drugs. To do that, they have increased the number of risk factors that demands preventive measures, and expanded the limits for the previous ones.

But not only does the panel exaggerate the risk of coronary disease and the relevance of high cholesterol, it also ignores a wealth of contradictory evidence. The panel statements reveal that its members have little clinical experience and lack basic knowledge of the medical literature, or worse, they ignore or misquote all studies that are contrary to their view.

Here come a few examples of the panel’s false statements.

As an argument for using cholesterol-lowering drugs the panel claims that twenty percent of patients with coronary heart disease have a new heart attack after ten years. But to reach that number any minor symptom without clinical significance is included.

Most people survive even a major heart attack, many with few or no symptoms after recovery. What matters is how many die and this is much less than twenty percent.

The panel also recommends cholesterol-lowering drugs to all diabetics above 20, and to people with the metabolic syndrome. If you have at least three of the "risk factors" mentioned below, you are suffering from the metabolic syndrome:

Continue this and others here:

[www.ravnskov.nu]

Jackie: Here's the other side of the story; stroke being what worries a lot us afibbers more than most anything else:

[www.webmd.com]

Also, there are studies out about statins helping prevent osteoprosis.

Gordon

[www.afibbers.org]

Gordon - as long as the drug companies are going to bias study results, there will always be studies to support that statins will help one condition or another. In the case of osteoporosis, there are many other helpful treatments that don't involve something as dangerous as a statin. To take a statin for that would certainly be overkill.

Additionally, we have to consider that lowering cholesterol too much is implicated in risk of cancer.

It's all a crap shoot as far as I am concerned when it comes to weighing risk factors with the side effects of drugs. One thing of which you can be very sure is that the media campaigns to convince the public that they need statins and other drugs will continue. It's very big revenue. They won't let up and are always looking for other applications so the only thing the public can do is become aware of the downsides of drugs and make educated choices.

Incidentally, statins lower magnesium levels along with CoQ10.

Knowledge is power.

Jackie

Jackie

Per Jackie: "Knowledge is power"

That's certainly an axiom so the problem now is separating out the bullshit from the facts and absorbing only that which is true; and the problems with humans is that what may be true and work for one is just the opposite for the other.

Certainly if you're saying that all drugs have side effects you're right and the issue always boils down to are the benefits worth the risks; i.e., is it acceptable to have 10 people die from a drug if it saves 1000 other lives? What is an "acceptable risk" when intorducing a new drug? If it's my life being saved the acceptable risk would certainly be different than if I was one of those who would die because of the drug.

I suspect supplement companies are no better than drug companies in the quality of their research and the interpretation of the results; indeed they probably do less testing because of the $$$$ requirements.

Bottom line for me is to make the decision as to which of all the data out there I choose to believe and from that to design a program to follow that's right for me.

I certainly appreciate all the research you do and your ability to condense the results into words understandable to us laymen. Now, if you just had a truth detector to apply to all those data before you spent the time processing them.

Gordon

Gordon - I get it. You like statins. Your choice. I don't and was harmed by them and by two unnecessary surgeries as well. My choice and I choose to warn others.

One thing I know for sure is that the human body doesn't suffer from a deficiency of prescription drugs.

I also know that nutritional deficiencies can cause disease conditions and that targeted nutritional supplements can correct deficiencies.

I definitely do not approve of shot-gun methods of nutritional supplements without metabolic functional testing for deficiencies and I'm not in favor of self-diagnosis or treatment without medical supervision from a qualified nutritionally-oriented physician or other medical professional. Once the diagnosis is established, nutritional interventions can be applied instead of drugs if a patients chooses to go that route. I do.

The information I typically glean comes from well-respected medical professionals who have gone beyond traditional medical education which excludes nutritional education, and have have gone the extra mile to learn about nutritional intervention. By their own experiences with patients, they have developed a sense of efficacy and success in treating with supplements. They are excited to share the results. I'm happy to learn of them as well.

As you and I both know, until patents can cover supplements (which they won't because natural materials aren't patentable) there will be no such studies to satisfy those who only want to look at published data rather than the live results of successful nutritional interventions.

Because of my medical injuries, my mission is to create awareness and that's exactly what I intend to continue to do because nutritional therapies work. I observe that success everytime I work in my functional medicine MDs office and watch patients who originally arrived severely compromised come come back feeling better and better. Their testimonials are awesome, and my own journey of correcting health issues by targeted nutritional means motivates me to continue to share information with those seeking it.

I can only say to your question of risking 10 lives to save 1000, we can't ask the 10 what their opinion would be, but I'm guessing they'd say it wasn't worth the risk. Dead is dead. If risks are known, then we can choose to avoid; the people who aren't aware of existing risks are risks are the ones to whom I address my concerns.

Creating awareness is just that. It's done so people can decide for themselves what is right for them. I honor your choice to do that for you.
I do this because no one warned me of the downsides....that's called informed consent.... and I didn't receive it and because I trusted the medical establishment, I was harmed. If I can help prevent this in others, I'm certainly willing to try.

Healthy is wealthy,

Jackie