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Statins — Saviours of mankind, or expensive hoax
Over the last decade and a half a new class of drugs has been introduced to lower cholesterol levels. Although they are heralded as being completely safe, there is another side to them.
The drugs concerned are called STATINS.
Statins may be overprescribed in healthy people without evidence of diseased arteries
A Johns Hopkins study finds that only people with calcium build-up in their coronary arteries are at risk of a heart attack.
Eprotirome: A Novel Thyroid Hormone Analogue Makes Statins More Effective
This new drug will be used in addition to statins, and add to the cost of statins which are already expensive. Wouldn't it be better just to use thyroxine?
Commercial bias in medical research:
Which cholesterol-lowering statin is best? Your guess is as good as mine, as study findings depend on who has funded the research.
At Last: Patients Should Be Told That Statins Aren't As Safe As They Had Been Led to Believe!
The November 2009 issue of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin criticises a delay in the implementation of February 2008 advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency about informing patients of side effects associated with statin use.
Statins and risk of polyneuropathy
Study showing that the use of statins causes nerve damage.
Doctors refuse to accept statins' side effects
The British government recently recommended that everyone over the age of 50 should be given statin drugs. Statins are drugs used to lower cholesterol and are "remarkably safe" and with few side effects. But are they? Here are known adverse effects which doctors don't want to hear about.
Statins: Are they of benefit or an expensive scam?
Although there is not, and never has been, any convincing
evidence that levels of serum cholesterol have any causal relationship with
coronary heart disease, that hasn't stopped the cholesterol hypothesis being
used as a basis for the sale of drugs to lower cholesterol.
Statins: Did Your Doctor Tell You . . .? (200KB PDF file; Opens in new window)
This paper, published by Michael Babcock in 2003, and updated in November 2010, is both informative and easy to read. It discusses what statins are, looks at the 10 major trials and discusses who should and, more importantly, who should not take statins. It also looks in detail at the known side effects of statins – about which your doctor might not tell you — or indeed know about!
Lipitor: Thief of Memory
This book by a highly qualified doctor tells the story of his complete loss of memory when he took the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor.
See also www.Cholesterol-and-Health.org.uk, an easy to read website about this whole topic from what cholesterol is, why you need it, and how it is made in the body, to what happens if you take cholesterol-lowering drugs such as statins.
Last updated 18 November 2010
