Posted on 06/27/2008 1:19:00 PM PDT by TennesseeGirl
Reuters Health
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Use of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins rose by 156 percent between 2000 and 2005, with spending jumping from $7.7 billion to $19.7 billion, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported on Wednesday.
"The number of people purchasing statins nearly doubled when comparing 2000 and 2005, rising from 15.8 million people to 29.7 million people," the AHRQ report reads.
The total number of outpatient prescriptions for statins rose from about 90 million in 2000 to nearly 174 million in 2005. Each individual spent $484 a year on average on statins in 2000; this rose to $661 by 2005.
Statins are wildly popular drugs that lower the risk of heart attack or stroke by lowering levels of so-called fatty substances such as bad cholesterol and triglycerides, and raising levels of "good" cholesterol.
They include atorvastatin, made by Pfizer under the brand name Lipitor; pravastatin or Pravachol, made by Bristol Myers Squibb ; fluvastatin, made by Novartis under the brand name Lescol, and several others.
My doctor recommended red yeast rice. We'll see how that works out at my next check up.
Doesn’t Red Rice Yeast have the same side effects on the liver as statins do? If not, I’ll start taking it!
In fairness, he said he's never encountered a problem with those using the drugs, but if my liver is going to be punished, I'm gonna at least have fun doing it...
“.... rose by 156 percent between 2000 and 2005”
Really are current with their stats, aren’t they?
Statins are the biggest pharmaceutical scam ever perpetrated upon the American public.
Statins DO NOT prevent heart attacks. Just ask Tim Russert. OOPS! I forgot—he’s dead.
The biggest scam perpetrasted on the American public since Global warming.
Statins were recently recommended for diabetes patients to prevent further heart damage from the diabetes.
If so, I agree. He's as much a pragmatic nutritionist and thats what I'm looking for.
Looking at you subsequent post it seems you do not agree with red yeast rice approach. I’d appreciate hearing your opinion & why.
Got put on the statins 9 months ago. Liver functions have been fine. No side effects. Cholesterol went from 248 to 148 (yup, 100 points). Ratio is fine. Blood pressure is actually low normal. Thus far, I’d vote for it.
Quite right. Statins DO have some effects on cardio-vascular disease, but not because of reduction of cholesterol. Plus statins are poisonous (causing liver damage) and can cause birth defects.
What are the side effects of statins?
Statins have few important side effects. The most common side effects are headache, nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, headache, rash, weakness, and muscle pain. The most serious (but fortunately rare) side effects are liver failure and rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis is a serious side effect in which there is damage to muscles. Rhabdomyolysis often begins as muscle pain and can progress to loss of muscle cells, kidney failure, and death. It occurs more often when statins are used in combination with other drugs that themselves cause rhabdomyolysis or with drugs that prevent the elimination of statins and raise the levels of statins in the blood. Since rhabdomyolysis may be fatal, unexplained joint or muscle pain that occurs while taking statins should be brought to the attention of a healthcare provider for evaluation.
Any reports of rhabdomyolysis with Red Rice Yeast?
http://www.spacedoc.net/red_yeast_rice.htm
Yup, just as I suspected. rhabdomyolysis and other statin side-effects can be expected at the same rate as statins if using red rice yeast which is really just another statin. I do take CCQ10 every day anyway.
Amazingly (sarcasm), they've lowered your acceptable cholesterol number to 80! From 200 just a year ago.
Statins are the biggest money making scam since illegal drugs.
Well, I'm saving a little money anyway.
Statins don't prevent all heart attacks, they lower the risk by about 1.5%. So if your chances of having a heart attack without is 8.7%, with statins it's 7.2%.
Anyone want to get into blood pressure meds like atenolol and others? Seems “they’re” lowing the BP standards too to sell more drugs.
Thought you might like this one, especially “There were no statistically significant differences between the statin and control groups in the rates of patients who died from cardiovascular disease or from all causes.”
Among individuals without cardiovascular disease, taking statins regularly may reduce the risk of major heart and cerebrovascular events such as heart attack and stroke but not coronary heart disease or overall death, according to a meta-analysis of previously published studies, reported in the November 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Statins have been shown to reduce death and other negative outcomes associated with heart and cerebrovascular disease among those who already have these conditions, according to background information in the article. It is less clear whether these medications benefit those without cardiovascular disease. Current national treatment guidelines recommend the use of statins in these patients based on their cardiovascular risk profile and LDL-C or “bad cholesterol” level. For patients without cardiovascular disease and with normal LDL-C levels, statins are recommended only for individuals with diabetes or with two or more other cardiac risk factors that raise their 10-year risk of a heart attack or other heart event to at least 10 percent.
Paaladinesh Thavendiranathan, M.D., M.Sc., University of Toronto, Ontario, and colleagues analyzed the results of seven previously published clinical trials that assessed the benefits of statins in a total of 42,848 patients, 90 percent of whom had no history of cardiovascular disease. In each study, patients were randomly assigned to receive either statins or another form of care and were followed for at least one year, at least 100 major cardiovascular events occurred and 80 percent or more of the participants did not have cardiovascular disease.
In total, 21,409 patients in the trials took statins and 21,439 were assigned to placebo. The average follow-up period for the studies ranged from 3.2 to 5.2 years; average age of the participants ranged from 55.1 to 75.4 years; and the proportion of men included ranged from 42 percent to 100 percent. In patients on statin therapy, there were 924 major coronary events such as heart attack compared with 1,219 among those in control groups-a 29.2 percent reduction in risk. Major cerebrovascular events, including stroke, occurred in 440 patients taking statins and 517 controls, a 14.4 percent lower risk. Statin treatment was also associated with a 31.7 percent reduction in risk for non-fatal heart attacks and a 33.8 percent reduction in the number of revascularization procedures, which restore blood flow and include angioplasty and bypass surgery. There were no statistically significant differences between the statin and control groups in the rates of patients who died from cardiovascular disease or from all causes.
Assuming that individuals not taking statins have a 5.7 percent chance of having a major heart event over a 4.3-year period, statins can reduce that risk to 4 percent, the authors write. “Therefore, 60 patients would need to be treated for an average of 4.3 years to prevent one major coronary event.” Similarly, 268 patients would need to be treated to prevent one stroke or other major cerebrovascular event; 61 to prevent one non-fatal heart attack; and 93 to prevent one revascularization procedure.
Statins are expensive and other therapies also may work to reduce risk, the authors conclude. “Therefore, even though universal lipid-lowering therapy appears attractive, especially in an intermediate-risk primary prevention population, further studies are needed to clarify the cost-effectiveness of therapy in this group.”
American Medical Association (AMA)
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Not exactly. As more studies are performed, “they” have found that the lower the blood pressure the better. As long as you can walk around without fainting.
I love a good sense of humor!! :-)
My husband’s doc took him off statins in favor of Omega-3 fish oils. We’ll see how it works.
From the day I started Simvastatin, my leg muscles deteriorated even while on a vigorous exercise regimen.
It got so bad that walking up stairs became worrisome, and I’m a physically fit 46 y.o. guy.
From the moment I stopped taking it, my leg muscles have improved. They’re back to being the solid tree trunks of old.
I may look for another statin, but man that last one had me worried.
Lipitor made me sick as a dog soon after I was put on it. Doctors put me on another drug they said was not a statin and I got worse on Gimfibrizol (sp?).
Gimbribrizol isn’t a statin but related to it. That’s where I lost my legs. I was at an excellent exercise level, too, and right after starting the Gim-etc I couldn’t walk twelve feet without sitting down due to exhuastion and pain.
Subsequently I’ve asked a lot of people about their experiences and every last one of them had trouble with statins. One fellow, on hearing my experience took himself off it and his liver problems went away.
By the way drs. prescribe this stuff you’d think they are making money on it as well.
Am I not concentrating well or is that report not too enthusiastic about prescribing statins?
None known
Nope, it has the same effect on cholesterol but not the same side effects. Google it and see what you come up with.
Cholesterol-lowering effects of a proprietary Chinese red-yeast-rice dietary supplement1,2,3,4
David Heber, Ian Yip, Judith M Ashley, David A Elashoff, Robert M Elashoff and Vay Liang W Go
Background: We examined the cholesterol-lowering effects of a proprietary Chinese red-yeast-rice supplement in an American population consuming a diet similar to the American Heart Association Step I diet using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, prospectively randomized 12-wk controlled trial at a university research center.
Objective: We evaluated the lipid-lowering effects of this red-yeast-rice dietary supplement in US adults separate from effects of diet alone.
Design: Eighty-three healthy subjects (46 men and 37 women aged 34–78 y) with hyperlipidemia [total cholesterol, 5.28–8.74 mmol/L (204–338 mg/dL); LDL cholesterol, 3.31–7.16 mmol/L (128–277 mg/dL); triacylglycerol, 0.62–2.78 mmol/L (55–246 mg/dL); and HDL cholesterol 0.78–2.46 mmol/L (30–95 mg/dL)] who were not being treated with lipid-lowering drugs participated. Subjects were treated with red yeast rice (2.4 g/d) or placebo and instructed to consume a diet providing 30% of energy from fat, <10% from saturated fat, and <300 mg cholesterol daily. Main outcome measures were total cholesterol, total triacylglycerol, and HDL and LDL cholesterol measured at weeks 8, 9, 11, and 12.
Results: Total cholesterol concentrations decreased significantly between baseline and 8 wk in the red-yeast-rice–treated group compared with the placebo-treated group [( ± SD) 6.57 ± 0.93 mmol/L (254 ± 36 mg/dL) to 5.38 ± 0.80 mmol/L (208 ± 31 mg/dL); P < 0.001]. LDL cholesterol and total triacylglycerol were also reduced with the supplement. HDL cholesterol did not change significantly.
Conclusions: Red yeast rice significantly reduces total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and total triacylglycerol concentrations compared with placebo and provides a new, novel, food-based approach to lowering cholesterol in the general population.
Courtesy of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Lipitor alone is a $14B/yr statin.
Yes, but you are not like me, and millions of others, that have severe side effects from statins. Do you like walking? I do but if I take statins my muscles start going away, luckily I noticed it in time to quit taking them before permanent damage was done. If I am going to die, I want to do it walking. We are all going to die anyway, if you go now or 10 years from now living a lifestyle you hate how is that an improvement? I have a friend, a man I went to HS with that cannot walk at all except to go to the toilet and barely get around his house, this is from statins. He doesn’t go anywhere or do anthing he used to do but he thinks he is ok because his cholesterol is low. I personally will not take them any more.
Did you get your legs back? I did mine after dropping lipitor and then later lovastatin, which was told to me as being different than lipitor, but had the same dibilitating side effect of making my legs hurt like he** and unable to walk. Hopefully you quit soon enough to save your legs. A friend of mine won’t quit them and can’t walk around the house.
The AMA just did everyone a huge favor with their post. What they said is absolutely true. I recommend folks who are skeptical Google NEJM, the New England Journal of Medicine. Search for “statins.” Also Google JAMA. For the person who questions the lowering of the BP recommendations, these two journals will provide enough data to convince anyone. Of course, if you come at this with the belief that medicine is a fraud you will end up believing nothing. Always remember anyone can write anything. The right to do this is part of our heritage. However, be aware NEJM and JAMA are peer reviewed which means ther are reviewers who read he article for accuracy. In my active days I was a reviewer and I can assure you I questioned everything!
a doctor put me on lipitor and specifically told me not to change my diet. Is he freakin' nuts? I disregared his advice and changed my diet and when my bad c dropped and my good c increased dramatically, this schmuck was surprised.
I did everything right, yet I ended up with severe blockages. Sometimes it makes no difference what you do. A schmuck opened the blockages with poison (drug eluting) stents despite the fact that I said absolutely no to them before the procedure. Now,I need surgery for another matter and it also seems that in stent stenosis has occurred. A double freakin' whammy.
Don’t go to another statin, they will all do that to your legs, I went through the same thing with two different statins. Quit while you still have your legs. Every now and then I get a bad moment of two with my legs but they are gradually getting better. I used to have the strongest legs of anyone I know but after statins that changed!
CoQ10 is unrelated to the liver function, AFAIK.
I take it, but for general mitochondrial cellular depletion, and the myopathies that can follow, not as a liver “fix-up”.
If anyone is aware of a peer-reviewed study suggesting the contrary, please PM me.
Liver function can be adversely impacted by statins for sure, but I know of nothing to suggest that CoQ10 is a factor there.
Yes, I was off Gemfibrozil in three weeks and got my legs back about a month later. Trust me, I was counting the days.
When I googled those side effects I got the impression that the injurious effects could be permanent under certain circumstances. Maybe your friend should quit.
My doctor recommended the same thing and I used the Red Yeast Rice for a couple of months. It did help —brought my TC down by about six-points, but it wasn't enough improvement so now I too am on a statin Rx. (I also try to eat oatmeal for breakfast as it is supposed to help lower Cholesterol.
The problem is that you never know if a given supplement product actually has an efficacious level of lovastatin. Some tested had none.
Subsequently I’ve asked a lot of people about their experiences and every last one of them had trouble with statins.
That was my exactly my experience with statin drugs! leg cramps and lower back pain along with inablity to walk any distance at all.
Good luck with your condition.
That may be only because the level of the active statin (which is lovastatin -- simply a natural statin -- Mevacor is a synthetic name) is so low in the supplements.
My friend won’t quit. I have told him it can be permenant but he seems to think losing his legs is a good price to pay for living longer. I told him he was full of it because there was really no proof he was going to live longer, but he won’t listen to me. That is what fear of dying does to people. As far as I am concern I will die with my legs working rather than voluntarily stopping their function.
I did and the first article I came to said it’s basically a statin and has the potential side effects as statins do.
My doc wanted to double my atenolol from 50 mg to 100 mg daily to meet these new standards i.e. 120/70. He also wanted me on statins. I said no to both. My bp vaires between 120/70 to 135/80, that is good enough for me and was good enough for my previous doc.
Reading about peoples experiences with statins here on this thread and others makes me very glad I just said no to that drug too. I want a happy life, not necessarily a long one.
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