More Bad News about Statins

[Guest guest]

I heard about this awhile ago, and I wondered why it never got any mainstream

press! Keep in mind too that you heart is a muscle, so if this drug is causing

muscle wasting, then it's going to attack the heart. If big pharma tries to

convince people otherwise, like saying that that 'heart muscle is different',

and that it's not affected, then you can bet that they are just saying that so

that they will avoid lawsuits from the families of people who have had deadly

heart attacks after being on statins. The death of Tim Russert is a classic

example of this IMHO.

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________

" bestsurprise2002 " <bestsurprise2002

MCS-Canada

Thursday, 16 July, 2009 19:02:17

<< >> More Bad News about Statins

 

 

More Bad News about Statins

_http://www.jonbarro n.org/blog_ published/ 2009/07/more_ bad_news_

about_statins

..html_

(http://www.jonbarro n.org/blog_ published/ 2009/07/more_ bad_news_

about_statins. html)

 

 

 

 

The latest brick in the tomb of statins -- those cholesterol- regulating

meds -- comes from a new study confirming that the drugs cause _structural

damage to muscles_

(http://health. usnews.com/ articles/ health/healthday /2009/07/ 06/statins-

may-cause- muscle-damage- in-some-patients .html) . Even worse,

the study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that

muscle damage can continue to progress even after patients stop taking the

drugs. As study author Dr. Annette Draeger of the University of Bern,

Switzerland, puts it, **Although in clinical practice, the majority of patients

with muscle symptoms improve rapidly after cessation of therapy, our

findings support that a subgroup of patients appears to be more susceptible to

statin-associated myotoxicity, suffering persistent structural injury.**

 

Scientists have long known that at least 10 to 15 percent of patients

taking statins -- a class of drugs that includes the widely prescribed Lipitor,

Zocol, and Pravachur -- develop muscle pain and weakness, and that one out

of 50 reports continual or debilitating pain. But the scientists thought

they had it under control because they could administer a blood test that

determines if structural damage has been done to muscles. That test, which

doctors have relied upon, measures levels of an enzyme known as _creatine

phosphokinase_ (http://www.webmd. com/heart- disease/cardiac- enzyme-studies)

(CPK), which supposedly shows up in the blood after damage to muscles has

occurred. If the patient complains of muscle pain but shows no CPK markers in

the blood, physicians most likely advise that the benefits of statin therapy

outweigh the discomfort of achy muscles and the patient should just buck up

and live with it.

But a surprise finding in this study made clear that the CPK test doesn*t

necessarily give accurate readings. The researchers took _leg muscle

tissue_

(http://health. usnews.com/ articles/ health/healthday /2009/07/ 06/statins-

may-cause- muscle-damage- in-some-patients .html) biopsies of subjects who were

on statins and experiencing muscle pain severe enough to interfere with

normal activity. To see if the pains they complained about resulted from actual

damage to their muscles, the researchers examined their muscle tissue. They

found that half of the statin-taking subjects did indeed show structural

damage to muscle fibers.

The finding threw some of the researchers, because in this study, only one

patient showed elevated CPK levels, meaning that structural damage was

ongoing and progressive for the 50 percent of patients who had *normal*

readings on their muscle damage test. Nevertheless, the researchers said that

patients taking statins who weren't in excruciating pain shouldn*t worry and

should continue taking the medicine.

The medical community jumped in to defend statins, with numerous

commentators pointing out that most people on statins don't develop muscle pains

at

all. **Patients on statin therapy who are feeling fine should not worry

about muscle damage, and no one should stop treatment without talking to their

doctor,** says study co-author Dr. Richard H. Karas of Tufts University.

**It is important to point out that we are talking about a minority of a

minority of patients taking statins,** chimes in the past president of the

American Heart Association, Dr. Sidney Smith. Both physicians do concede that

those with long-term debilitating pain should go off the drug.

But the assumption that only a few patients suffer from muscle damage is,

according to at least one study, debatable. The study, published in 2006 in

the Journal of Pathology, reports that virtually all _patients who take

statins experience muscle damage_

(http://www.spacedoc .net/statins_ muscle_damage_ cost.html) , even if they

don*t have pain. The researchers, out of the

University of Bern, Switzerland, performed muscle tissue biopsies on

statin-taking patients and then analyzed the samples using electron microscopy.

True, the damage was minimal in most cases, but it was universal. And the

fact remains that at least some patients experience severe and lasting

muscular degeneration from taking the drug.

The response of the medical community to studies such as the latest one

makes it seem that staying on statins is worth the risk of suffering

undetected muscle damage for most patients who don't experience the worst brand

of

pain. But, as I*ve written before, _statins come with a high cost_

(http://www.jonbarro n.org/blog_ published/ 2008/06/choleste rol_drugs_

do_more_harm. html)

, far beyond the muscular damage they inflict, and they do little good

for most people. Among the reported side effects: severe memory loss, nerve

damage, trouble talking, nausea, vertigo, and a fifty percent _increased risk

of cancer_

(http://www.jonbarro n.org/blog_ published/ 2008/10/vytorin_ inegy_may_

cause_cancer. html) .

And the payoff for those risks is -- nothing, unless you've already

suffered a heart attack. While the drugs do lower cholesterol, research shows

that they do absolutely nothing to lower your chances of suffering a cardiac

event. A large-scale study published last year found that Lipitor prevents

only one heart attack per 100 users, and that*s an optimistic figure. A

similar _study featuring Crestor_ (http://chetday. com/crestorserio usrisks.htm)

came up with similar results. I*ve explained at length before that

_cholesterol does not cause plaque to build up_

(http://www.jonbarro n.org/blog_ published/ 2008/06/choleste rol_drugs_

do_more_harm. html) on artery walls, and so

it*s not the coronary villain it's made out to be and lowering it won't save

you from heart attacks.

But the scientific community seems unwilling or unable to look past the

$14.5 billion in annual sales that statins deliver, making them the

best-selling medications in America. Study after study makes clear that the

risks of

taking statins outweigh the benefits for most people, and still doctors

write out the prescriptions wholesale. The sad fact is that many far safer,

less expensive options exist -- from supplementing with Omega-3 fatty acids

thereby _reducing circulating NEFA levels in the blood_

(http://www.jonbarro n.org/heart- health-program/ 07-04-2005. php) to using

_proteolytic enzymes to

clear your arteries, reduce systemic inflammation, and repair scarred

arterial tissue_

(http://www.jonbarro n.org/baseline- health-program/ 08-26-2006. php) .

As I've written before, a _2006 study_

(http://www.jabfm. org/cgi/content/ abstract/ 19/2/103) found that taking statin

medications may add a maximum of

3.5 years of life to those with heart problems, but regular physical

exercise adds up to five years. If you're going to have achy muscles, you might

as well get them from enjoying a heart-healthy run around the track,

instead of from taking a largely useless, expensive, dangerous medication. And

if

your doctor insists that you take statins, fire her if she doesn't also

insist that you take CoQ10 with them. Supplementing with _CoQ10 has been

shown to reduce or prevent many of the muscle related side effects of statins_

(http://www.ncbi. nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/17493470) .