Reasons to Avoid Taking Statins – Part 1

I like the opening statement from AnhInternational, which states - “If you hadn’t noticed that the statin bubble had burst, you were probably suffering a statin-induced fuzzy head and hadn’t managed to stay up with breaking news.”

Over the past months a flurry of long-term studies have been emerging, driving the last nails into the coffin of one of the most profitable drug classes the pharmaceutical industry has yet seen. Or so it might seem.

Statins are prescribed for the purpose of reducing cholesterol levels, which have long been viewed as a major risk factor for heart disease. How many people know the long-term risks (or benefits, or otherwise) of statins before they take them?

While the scientific edifice for this assertion may largely have collapsed, major health authorities like the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) are much slower to retract their argument that high cholesterol in the bloodstream leads to clogging up of arteries and increased heart attack risk. This misinformed and greatly over-simplified view results in over-prescription of statins, with the US being the number one prescribing nation in the world and the UK the second biggest. Over a million statin prescriptions are filled each week in the UK.

If they were talking about more sensitive measurements of C-Reactive Protein (CRP), sub-clinical low-grade inflammation, apolipoproteins profiles or oxidized fractions of very low-density lipoprotein (ox-VLDL), that would be an entirely different issue. But only doctors and practitioners really prepared to look at the totality of evidence, including emerging evidence, are presently using comprehensive cardiovascular risk profiles including some of these emerging markers. To top if off though, statin drugs themselves actually cause atherosclerosis and heart disease…

Big Pharma, and its servants in health and regulatory authorities, don’t give up so easily. Even the US FDA, while being forced to admit and communicate more evidence of harm, still argues that purported benefits in reducing heart disease outweigh risks, be these kidney, brain, muscle or eye damage, or increased type 2 diabetes incidence. More than that, seemingly outlandish new claims for other ‘spin-off’ benefits keep emerging, helping offset the bad publicity about side effects.

Among the headlines generated recently are:

• “Statins can halve patients’ risk of dying from cancer”. These data were based on observational studies, they were publicized at a conference, generated headlines globally—and have since been contested.
• “Statins may reduce dementia by a third”

• “Double duty drug: statins may fight MS”

• “Statins could reverse most common form of blindness”