I think most people understand the “drug deal” relating to the pharmaceutical industry, http://www.drugwatch.com/manufacturer/, but we seem to forget that prescribed drugs by a physician can be just as dangerous as any drug on the street. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug dependence, https://ncadd.org/learn-about-drugs/prescription-drugs, “an estimated 48 million people have abused prescription drugs, representing nearly 20% of the U.S. population ” and it is not just addiction as there are serious health consequences to these legal drugs. Statins are no exception to the rule recently proving to have similar side effects to other drugs already taken off the market; you can read about “35 FDA-Approved Prescription Drugs Later Pulled from the Market,” http://prescriptiondrugs.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=005528.
Make no mistake prescription medications are created to make a ton of legal drug money. In my opinion anyone taking any prescription drug within the first 5-10 years of its release is a human guinea pig.
If you listen to Michael Roizen, MD ( the colleague of Dr. Oz), https://www.sharecare.com/health/pharmaceuticals/how-many-people-take-statin, “15 million Americans are now taking a statin drug, according to the large pharmaceutical survey organization (IMS, Instructional Management Systems), most don’t take the drug as they should. Only 32 percent take statins as their doctor prescribed — many skip taking over 50 percent of their pills or even any pills. Furthermore, even though the National Institutes of Health recommends that 35 million Americans take statins, considerably more than that actually do. If all the benefits we think statins provide actually prove to be true, perhaps statins should be taken regularly by almost all of us, as aspirin is, and started at about the same time, age thirty-five or forty.”
Most doctors would agree but there is mounting evidence that statins are not all that! And maybe those who have given up on taking statins are smarter than those who are using them.
As I mention in a previous blog entitled, “A Statin Standoff or Much More?” , https://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/a-statin-standoff-or-much-more/, statins have been shown to help only a small group of individuals but most of the people taking them are playing Russian roulette.
A new retrospective study from the VA just surfaced, http://www.research.va.gov/currents/spring2015/spring2015-19.cfm, data was collected during 2003-2012 from approximately 26,000 beneficiaries of Tricare, the military health system. Healthy individuals who were prescribed and using statin drugs to control their cholesterol were 87 percent more likely to develop diabetes, 250 percent more likely to develop diabetic complications and 14 percent more likely to become overweight or obese than their non-statin-using peers. To make matters worse, there was also a dose dependent connection. Findings showed “the higher the dose of any of the statins, the greater the risk of diabetes, diabetes complications, and obesity”.
The authors published more results tying statin use to cataracts and muscle injury:
- Leuschen J1,Mortensen EM,Frei CR, Mansi EA, Panday V, Mansi I. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2013 Nov;131(11):1427-34. “Association of statin use with cataracts: a propensity score-matched analysis”
“The risk for cataract is increased among statin users as compared with nonusers. The risk-benefit ratio of statin use, specifically for primary prevention, should be carefully weighed, and further studies are warranted.”
- Mansi I1,Frei CR,Pugh MJ, Makris U, Mortensen EM. JAMA Intern Med. 2013 Jul 22;173(14):1-10. “Statins and musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies, and injuries”
“Musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies, injuries, and pain are more common among statin users than among similar nonusers. The full spectrum of statins’ musculoskeletal adverse events may not be fully explored, and further studies are warranted, especially in physically active individuals.”
Make sure that if you are taking any prescribed or over the counter medication, http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/drugs-procedures-devices/over-the-counter/otc-medicines-know-your-risks-and-reduce-them.html, that you really need it.
Otherwise, just like any other drug deal, you may just be putting your health and life on the line.
There are natural alternatives to statins. The first step is to speak with your doctor about eating a ketogenic diet, like the one I write about in my book, “The Stubborn Fat Fix” and using the supplements mentioned here, https://valeriegoldstein.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/a-statin-standoff-or-much-more/.
