Posted on 01/19/2008 8:20:27 PM PST by neverdem
Correction Appended
For decades, the theory that lowering cholesterol is always beneficial has been a core principle of cardiology. It has been accepted by doctors and used by drug makers to win quick approval for new medicines to reduce cholesterol.
But now some prominent cardiologists say the results of two recent clinical trials have raised serious questions about that theory — and the value of two widely used cholesterol-lowering medicines, Zetia and its sister drug, Vytorin. Other new cholesterol-fighting drugs, including one that Merck hopes to begin selling this year, may also require closer scrutiny, they say.
“The idea that you’re just going to lower LDL and people are going to get better, that’s too simplistic, much too simplistic,” said Dr. Eric J. Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, Calif. LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, is the so-called bad cholesterol, in contrast to high-density lipoprotein, or HDL.
For patients and drug companies, the stakes are enormous. Led by best sellers like Lipitor from Pfizer, cholesterol-lowering medicines, taken by tens of millions of patients daily, are the largest drug category worldwide, with annual sales of $40 billion.
Despite widespread use of the drugs, though, heart disease remains the biggest killer in the United States and other industrialized nations, and many people still have cholesterol levels far higher than doctors recommend.
As a result, drug companies are investing billions of dollars in experimental new cholesterol-lowering medicines that may eventually be used alongside the existing drugs. If the new questions result in slower approvals, it would be yet another handicap for the drug industry.
Because the link between excessive LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular disease has been so widely accepted, the Food and Drug Administration generally has not required drug companies to prove that cholesterol medicines actually...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How do you know if you have rhabdomyolysis from statin use? What are the symptoms?
Click on the link. Unexplained muscle weakness or pain when taking a statin is not good news.
Never heard that one. I take it five minutes before lights out, and it's lights out!
Statins interfere with our synthesis of COQ10 or ubiquinol. coq10 is a key element in energy production in the mitochondria. You might have your husband try supplementing with COQ10. Try www.lef.org. They have the medical abstracts there about the statin/coq10 link and they also sell very high quality supplements (including coq10).
But as I'm sure you know, Rhabdomyolysis is quite rare. The great majority of muscle-related pains connected to taking statins are non-serious myalgias. Treatment by Co-Q10 and analgesics.
Funny you should mention that.
Many years ago, they found out I had a fairly nasty mitral valve prolapse.
I read somewhere that CoQ10 was helpful for that and took it religiously for about a year.
Several years ago I went in for another routine ultrasound and asked the tech how my MVP was doing.
She asked me “*What* MVP?”.
It was gone.
Completely.
She said she’d never heard of that happening before.
I still take it just because it makes me feel better than if I don’t.
I would never take statins....not even at gunpoint....:)
“Running & biking are aerobic. Swimming isn’t.”
Well, it definitely isn’t if you forget to breathe.....;-D
A ring of kielbasa before bedtime works wonders on the cholesterol.
I thought they were all endurance, so all aerobic.
I can’t swim to save my life. My kids are lifeguards.
Swimming has built muscles and lung capacity on them to be envied.
I love your tagline.
Forget to breathe? The coaches won’t let you.
Twenty-five yards with no breath is what they want, and my kids can do it.
My daughter is running track now and thinks it’s great cause you can exercise and breathe at the same time, and the coach isn’t yelling at her because she’s breathing too much.
Just....wow....8-O
“Five years later, I am still on maintenance drugs but my cholesterol is normal. My doctor has me take 10mg Lipitor tablet and split in half each day. They say a small dose could be preventitive of another attack but I am not taking the statin for a cholesterol problem.”
I am not a doctor, but I do take a very active interest in my health. Toward that end, I have been a member of the Life Extension Foundation http://www/lef.org for about the last 10 years. They publish Life Extension Magazine, and there have been numerous articles (including one in the Feb. ‘08 issue) regarding the importance of CoEnzyme Q10. CoQ10 is in every cell of our bodies-it helps protect the mitocondria, the energy powerhouses of the cell. It depletes naturally with age, and the depletion accelerates greatly with the use of statins (because cholesterol and CoQ10 have some common chemical attributes).
Anyhow, you have the phenomenon of people with normal cholesterol (due to taking statins) that end up dying of congestive heart failure. This happens because their CoQ10 is severely depleted, robbing the heart of energy (heart cells have the highest concentration of mitocondria, and the highest need for CoQ10). What used to happen only to the very old, or someone who had damaged their heart somehow (smoking, etc.), is now happening to a lot of people. This is in addition to the possible side effects of muscle pains, liver problems, etc. The latter may not show up in everyone, but the depletion of CoQ10 is a FACT, and it is dangerous. The drug industry is proudly touting the fact that people who take statins have less heart attacks - but they are notably silent about the fact that these same people have about the same death rates as those who DON’T take statins. IOW, you get one benefit, but it comes with a cost - and you end up spending a not so small fortune on drugs for peace of mind - and really get almost nothing.
BTW, it would be untruthful to say that no one benefits from statins. Of course they do - but you just don’t hear much about those who don’t, let alone those who are harmed by them. You, like any consumer, need to educate yourself - especially considering what’s at stake.
Get yourself a copy of the 2/08 issue (most newstands don’t have it, but a Barnes & Noble might), or wait a couple of weeks and the website above will have it posted by then. If your doctor isn’t also advising you to take large doses of CoQ10, then he’s probably doing you a disservice. BTW, it ain’t necessarily his fault - the medical profession is **generally** fairly dismissive of the medical benefits of nutritional supplements, and the drug industry is positively opposed to it (because it’d cost them a fortune if everyone did a few simple things, like take a baby aspirin, 1000 IU of Vitamin D, 1000 mg of fish oil, a couple of cups of green tea, 5 grams or so of soluble fiber, and a good multivitamin everyday). Read up on CoQ10 elsewhere, and then ask your doc about it. If he doesn’t know anything, or very little, about it, seek a second opinion with someone who DOES. Your life may literally depend on it.
Both of you should read my post #32, and then read up on cholesterol, heart disease, statins and CoQ10 on http://www/lef.org
BTW, Life Extension Foundation has a new form of CoQ10 that is FAR more absorbable than what you see on the store shelves (and thus is far more effective in raising blood levels of CoQ10). Everything you see is in a form know as ubiquinol, which is fat soluble and harder to absorb than the new form developed by a Japanese company, known as ubiquinone.
I was told I had MVP once, too, around 1988.....then in about 1999 I had another test, and asked them how the MVP was doing, and they said the same thing....WHAT MVP? But, I had not taken any CoQ10. I do however, have a little valve blip....
BTTT
hmmmm....can’t get your link to work.
Agreed. No Statins for me either. Doc is not happy, but I still refuse.
I'm already prone to leg cramps. Sorry, but I will never, ever take statins. Not even at gunpoint. There are also side effects in terms of memory loss.
Low tissue chromium stores is a risk for heart attacks. The chromium amplifies the insulin modulated uptake of glucose into muscle cells. When chromium is not present, the insulin modulated process loses 90% of its effectiveness. Chromium chelated with amino acids or nicotinic acid will increase your insulin effectiveness after a year in the storage pipeline.
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