Cholesterol Lowering Drugs May Be Harmful

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Then again, there are medical doctors and medical studies that seem to indicate that cholesterol is not as important as it's been given credit. Similar to the fat vs. sugar debate, it's generally accepted now that sugar is worse for you because of the way it interacts with bodily processes. High cholesterol can be impacted by high sugar consumption to a much greater degree than if someone had high cholesterol and ate a balanced diet, didn't smoke, and had a limited sugar intake.

My take is that you're the steward of your own ( or others ) health care and need to get information from multiple sources. I've had one bad experience in my life with a doctor's ego that created a life threatening situation ( not for me ). You may need a second and third opinion if you don't educate yourself to a particular degree...unfortunately, you may need it anyway. IMO, you're not educating yourself and putting yourself behind a potential eight ball if you just defer to everything your doctor says.
 
The sugar/carb connection with cholesterol is complicated. There is not much evidence that sugar consumption in the absence of calorie excess (overweight) is bad. In fact, sugar can have the beneficial effect of reducing cortisol and stress responses in fit people which can actually reduce cholesterol. I can tell you when I timed my sugar consumption with strenuous exercise, my LDL plummeted relative to the time when I avoided sugar and carbs. My LDL was 270 on no sugar/low carb and is currently 130 and I eat loads of fruit and gummy bears before and after a workout. On low carb, my body was basically in carb starvation mode which shot up cortisol.

The problem is sugar is very calorie dense and tastes good. So it is easy for people to become overweight when eating it, which is when all the sugar damage occurs. So this is not a case where one-size fits all. For someone 50lbs overweight, excess sugar can be devastating. A triathlete probably needs more sugar rather than less.
 
My 91 year old aunt who has hereditary high cholesterol was told to go on them a decade ago. She refused on the basis that she couldn't have her am grapefruit then.

My 93 year old grandmother doesn't need then with the same genes. Go figure.

I fear the moneymaking agenda that is the drug companies, but most peoples' diets are too poor to get ahead without them.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
I fear the moneymaking agenda that is the drug companies, but most peoples' diets are too poor to get ahead without them.


These are pretty much my thoughts to a T.
 
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: Kuato
I can't see taking my medical advice from YouTube, I let my Doctor do that.


The thing about it is though, a lot of the articles advising against statin drugs are written by doctors.
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Doesn't matter which drug you look at there will always be someone against it. There could be a pill that cured 99.995% of all people who took it as long as they took it and there would still be people against it.

Every drug has pro's and con's however the good out weight the bad. The people who are against anything tend to ignore the pro's focus on the negatives and the ones who side with them mostly are not looking for the truth but for something to feed their need for confirmation bias.
 
Originally Posted By: 3800Series
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: Kuato
I can't see taking my medical advice from YouTube, I let my Doctor do that.


The thing about it is though, a lot of the articles advising against statin drugs are written by doctors.
21.gif



Doesn't matter which drug you look at there will always be someone against it. There could be a pill that cured 99.995% of all people who took it as long as they took it and there would still be people against it.

Every drug has pro's and con's however the good out weight the bad. The people who are against anything tend to ignore the pro's focus on the negatives and the ones who side with them mostly are not looking for the truth but for something to feed their need for confirmation bias.


3800-Your post makes too much sense for BITOG!!!
shocked.gif
smirk.gif
 
Originally Posted By: 3800Series
Doesn't matter which drug you look at there will always be someone against it. There could be a pill that cured 99.995% of all people who took it as long as they took it and there would still be people against it.

Every drug has pro's and con's however the good out weight the bad. The people who are against anything tend to ignore the pro's focus on the negatives and the ones who side with them mostly are not looking for the truth but for something to feed their need for confirmation bias.


The thing is though, some drugs are so bad that they get banned by the FDA. Vioxx and Celebrex is on that list. Meanwhile, there's people out there with permanent heart damage from taking those drugs. I'm wondering if Lipitor (Atorvastatin) will be the next banned drug.
 
Provastatin left me with permanent pain in my arms and hands.

Over time it went from being almost unbearable to just being a bad pain
i can mostly forget about(after i stopped). The last day i took it i was driving home from work and had to take turns sitting on each hand to dull the pain during the 1 hour drive. Googled statin side effects and that was the last time ill ever take a statin.

As soon as i stopped the statin i noticed a big reduction in pain but it will never be back to normal/
 
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It's safe to say that I'm not part of the "pill popping for better health" crowd. Not only are there far too many side effects, but I have no intention of increasing the revenue of pharmaceutical companies. Neither my wife nor I take so much as an aspirin.

Both my wife and I have a very high quality diet, we get loads of both physical and mental exercise, and both of us have high "good" cholesterol and normal "bad" cholesterol. The benefits of having taken care of ourselves when we were younger are clearly paying off.
 
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
It's safe to say that I'm not part of the "pill popping for better health" crowd. Not only are there far too many side effects, but I have no intention of increasing the revenue of pharmaceutical companies. Neither my wife nor I take so much as an aspirin.

Both my wife and I have a very high quality diet, we get loads of both physical and mental exercise, and both of us have high "good" cholesterol and normal "bad" cholesterol. The benefits of having taken care of ourselves when we were younger are clearly paying off.


No offense but other than humble bragging you didnt contribute to this thread. Neither did I just now really.
 
Originally Posted By: 3800Series
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4

The thing about it is though, a lot of the articles advising against statin drugs are written by doctors.
21.gif



Doesn't matter which drug you look at there will always be someone against it. There could be a pill that cured 99.995% of all people who took it as long as they took it and there would still be people against it.

Every drug has pro's and con's however the good out weight the bad. The people who are against anything tend to ignore the pro's focus on the negatives and the ones who side with them mostly are not looking for the truth but for something to feed their need for confirmation bias.

Originally Posted By: CKN

3800-Your post makes too much sense for BITOG!!!
shocked.gif
smirk.gif


Yup..risk vs benefits. Heart attack vs leg pain...hmmm..let me think about that.There are those that can't take some statins, but there are usually alternatives.
 
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Originally Posted By: 3800Series


Doesn't matter which drug you look at there will always be someone against it. There could be a pill that cured 99.995% of all people who took it as long as they took it and there would still be people against it.

Every drug has pro's and con's however the good out weight the bad. The people who are against anything tend to ignore the pro's focus on the negatives and the ones who side with them mostly are not looking for the truth but for something to feed their need for confirmation bias.
Why would you take the pill that cures 99.995% of things wrong with you if there is nothing wrong with you? That's statins. "OK, so your cholesterol looks good, arteries look good, I'm going to give you Lipitor." It's insane. They're undergoing treatment for ailments they didn't have and now they're tired, muscles hurt, and can't remember what they did five minutes ago.
 
Originally Posted By: Kuato
I can't see taking my medical advice from YouTube, I let my Doctor do that.
Is your doctor actively doing research in the field you're asking him about? If not he's likely no more educated on a current subject than anyone else who read an article in a medical journal. Or looked at the brochures the beautiful drug rep gave them. If you think all doctors are brilliant minds knowledgeable of everything, you need to talk to my wife. A lot of doctors are dangerous egomaniacs, a lot more ego than sense.
 
Quote:
If you think all doctors are brilliant minds knowledgeable of everything, you need to talk to my wife.

As my grandfather used to say, "Remember, the average doctor is only "average." There is no reason that a person can't educate themselves about procedures, drugs, etc., and you can then make your own educated decisions. I once told my pregnant wife to wait until I researched a prescription her doctor had given her that turned out to be a near toxic dose if she had taken it. Doctors in Japan recently ran a major study that showed that terminal cancer patients who went home to die actually lived much longer than those who stayed in the hospital. Lots of people are hurt and even killed by doctors and hospitals all the time.
 
Originally Posted By: AuthorEditor
Quote:
If you think all doctors are brilliant minds knowledgeable of everything, you need to talk to my wife.

As my grandfather used to say, "Remember, the average doctor is only "average." There is no reason that a person can't educate themselves about procedures, drugs, etc., and you can then make your own educated decisions. I once told my pregnant wife to wait until I researched a prescription her doctor had given her that turned out to be a near toxic dose if she had taken it. Doctors in Japan recently ran a major study that showed that terminal cancer patients who went home to die actually lived much longer than those who stayed in the hospital. Lots of people are hurt and even killed by doctors and hospitals all the time.


That's all good and true and people should select doctors the way they select car mechanics - carefully.

But that is different from saying one should stop listening to everything that the medical community tells you because there are some bad doctors out there. There are many studies showing that statins reduce cardiovascular risk. If somebody has cholesterol over 300, and refuses to make lifestyle changes that will change that, then what is a doctor suppose to do? Tell him it's all good and don't take statins because some people have side effects?

Edit: Just to add, I have a genetic heart condition so I see a cardiologist on a regular basis. Everytime I walk into the office, at least 90% of the people are overweight (and not just by a little) and some can barely move without a wheel chair. This is not exactly a demographic that is going to do non-statin lifestyle therapy.
 
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Originally Posted By: VeeDubb


That's all good and true and people should select doctors the way they select car mechanics - carefully.

But that is different from saying one should stop listening to everything that the medical community tells you because there are some bad doctors out there. There are many studies showing that statins reduce cardiovascular risk. If somebody has cholesterol over 300, and refuses to make lifestyle changes that will change that, then what is a doctor suppose to do? Tell him it's all good and don't take statins because some people have side effects?

Edit: Just to add, I have a genetic heart condition so I see a cardiologist on a regular basis. Everytime I walk into the office, at least 90% of the people are overweight (and not just by a little) and some can barely move without a wheel chair. This is not exactly a demographic that is going to do non-statin lifestyle therapy.
They aren't prescribing statins to just people with high cholesterol. The rules basically state everyone over 40-50 should be on them.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/chole...rs-201311136868

Quote:
The new guidelines recommend a statin for:

anyone who has cardiovascular disease, including angina (chest pain with exercise or stress), a previous heart attack or stroke, or other related conditions
anyone with a very high level of harmful LDL cholesterol (generally an LDL above greater than 190 milligrams per deciliter of blood [mg/dL])
anyone with diabetes between the ages of 40 and 75 years
anyone with a greater than 7.5% chance of having a heart attack or stroke or developing other form of cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years.
 
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Originally Posted By: hatt
VeeDubb said:
Quote:
The new guidelines recommend a statin for:

anyone who has cardiovascular disease, including angina (chest pain with exercise or stress), a previous heart attack or stroke, or other related conditions
anyone with a very high level of harmful LDL cholesterol (generally an LDL above greater than 190 milligrams per deciliter of blood [mg/dL])
anyone with diabetes between the ages of 40 and 75 years
anyone with a greater than 7.5% chance of having a heart attack or stroke or developing other form of cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years.

I'm confused. Everyone of those bullet points points to somebody with a high risk profile and is certainly not just anybody over 40-50.

BTW, I am between 40-50. My doctor has never mentioned statin to me once. Even when my LDL was 270 about two years ago while I was experimenting with a low carb diet fiasco, he asked me about it and when I explained to him what was going on, he said okay, just try to change your diet and we'll take another look in a few months. But if you walk in 50 pounds overweight, diabetes, high LDL, he would be irresponsible not to put you on statins.
Click to expand...
 
Quote:
Everytime I walk into the office, at least 90% of the people are overweight (and not just by a little) and some can barely move without a wheel chair. This is not exactly a demographic that is going to do non-statin lifestyle therapy.

When I went to a cardiologist quite a few years ago for a total false alarm that cost me $thousands I noticed that most of the doctors and nurses looked almost as bad as the patients. I got the distinct impression that they were just going through the motions with most people: prescribe drugs, tell them to stop smoking and start eating better, tell them to start exercising more, and here's your next appointment to come see us for the same advice in a few months.
 
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