Posted on 01/27/2008 12:19:54 AM PST by neverdem
THE idea that cholesterol plays a key role in heart disease is so tightly woven into modern medical thinking that it is no longer considered open to question. This is the message that emerged all too clearly from the recent news that the drug Vytorin had fared no better in clinical trials than the statin therapy it was meant to supplant.
Vytorin is a combination of cholesterol-lowering drugs, one called Zetia and the other a statin called Zocor. Because the two drugs lower LDL cholesterol by different mechanisms, the makers of Vytorin (Merck and Schering-Plough) assumed that their double-barreled therapy would lower it more than either drug alone, which it did, and so do a better job of slowing the accumulation of fatty plaques in the arteries — which it did not.
Heart disease specialists who were asked to comment on this turn of events insisted that the result implied nothing about their assumption that LDL cholesterol is dangerous, only about whether it is always medically effective to lower it.
But this interpretation is based on a longstanding conceptual error embedded in the very language we use to discuss heart disease. It confuses the cholesterol carried in the bloodstream with the particles, known as lipoproteins, that shuttle that cholesterol around. There is little doubt that certain of these lipoproteins pose dangers, but whether cholesterol itself is a critical factor is a question that the Vytorin trial has most definitely raised. It’s a question that needs to be acknowledged and addressed if we’re going to make any more headway in preventing heart disease.
To understand the distinction between cholesterol and lipoproteins it helps to know something of the history of cholesterol research.
In the 1950s, two hypotheses competed for attention among heart disease researchers. It had been known for decades that...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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My older brother admitted he was having such bad hallucinations that he had to shine a flashlight around the room to dispel his fears. He is 85 and I see no benefit to him to continue to wear himself out fighting demons and going sleepless...
Yeah, well, I rather enjoyed the nightmares.
It was the muscle aches and feeling like a creaky old man that drove me away from statins.
You look it up. I already know the truth. You’re in need of the education.
Nope. It’s fact. Look it up.
NO shit sherlock. See my post 88.
Ummmmm, Luke?
You’ve lost your cool...
Well you keep taking them. There is also new studies out there linking statins to increased cases of ALS.
“You look it up. I already know the truth.”
Have a nice day.
You’re dam right. I don’t respond politely to blowhards telling me I’m ignorant when I know I’m right. I suppose you think that’s a terrible attitude, eh?
That’s right. Close your eyes, plug your ears, and run away. That’s all you’ve got when you got nothin.
BTW, the day’s over. You have a good evening.
“That’s right. Close your eyes, plug your ears, and run away.”
[hands over my ears] La-la-la-la-la!! I can’t hear you!!
This is the most recent study on cinnamon and blood sugar and it seems pretty clear:
Reuters Health
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Cinnamon does not appear to have any impact on blood sugar or cholesterol levels in people with diabetes, Connecticut-based researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care.
“The preponderance of evidence currently available does not suggest that cinnamon has the ability to decrease a person’s risk of heart disease by helping them control their diabetes or lower their cholesterol,” Dr. Craig I. Coleman, of Hartford Hospital, who was the principal investigator, told Reuters Health.
Several studies have looked at the impact of cinnamon on blood sugar and lipids (fats) in patients with diabetes but had only modest sample sizes and yielded mixed results, Coleman and colleagues note in their report.
This led them to perform a large review, or “meta-analysis,” of five studies in which a total of 282 type 1 or type 2 diabetic patients were randomly assigned to receive cinnamon or a placebo and were followed for up to 16 weeks.
All five studies used cinnamon cassia, “the same cinnamon most people have in their spice racks at home,” Coleman noted. Doses ranged from 1 to 6 grams daily.
As mentioned, the use of cinnamon did not significantly alter hemoglobin A1C — a marker of blood sugar control. It also had no effect on fasting blood sugar levels or lipid parameters. Analyses by subgroup and sensitivity did not appreciably alter these results.
Coleman told Reuters Health that the inspiration for conducting this specific analysis came from one of his research fellows, Dr. William Baker. “He works in a chain pharmacy as a pharmacist, now and then, and he was asked by a patient whether cinnamon was useful in treating diabetes.”
“As pharmacists, we want to be able to provide patients ... with the best information about these over-the-counter treatments, which are often readily available but under researched,” Coleman said. Based on the current study, “we would not recommend its use to patients,” he said.
SOURCE: Diabetes Care, January 2008.
I was taking a product called cinnulinPF in order to avoid the toxic part of cinnamon. However, it was in capsule form so I missed out on the good taste! ;-)
I love cinnamon, so I still use cinnamon in my coffee. I buy the powdered cinnamon from a local coffee shop, to avoid the sludge problem in the bottom of my cup.
I’ve already done that .. which my doctor was more than willing to allow me to do. He even suggested several good natural treatments .. but nothing worked.
But .. I’m a cinnamon lover, so I try to include a lot .. which doesn’t hurt and maybe it helps a little.
“Your body produces good cholesterol when it doesn’t get sufficient amounts of cholesterol from food. THe cholesterol that comes from food is largely the bad cholesterol.
Therefore, the less cholesterol you eat, the less bad cholesterol in your blood and the more good cholesterol in your blood.”
I’ve read a lot of studies and abstracts but I’ve never heard it put quite that way before; do you have a link to support this conclusion?
My guess is that there are some people who are of the right genetic makeup to benefit from these drugs. Doctors have no way to tell who has or hasn't got the right genotype. So you get people saying diet / no diet or eat fat / don't eat fat. The truth is, the drugs get thrown at people and in some cases, they "stick to the wall" and help. In others, they don't (and they create terrible side effects.)
You’re exactly correct.
But .. if people would read the comments about the drug .. they could tell the doctor about unusual symptoms sooner and perhaps avoid serious consequences.
Or .. have the confidence to tell their doctor they are not going to take those drugs.
My doctor tried to give me other drugs before .. and I just said NO! .. I’m not taking that stuff.
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