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EventsDo statins speed up aging… or slow it?
Do commonly used cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins) speed up the aging process? That’s what a media scare said yesterday:
I’m no fan of over-prescribing of drugs like statins, but this alarm is not too believable.
What the researchers showed was that statin drugs make stem cells – that rejuvenate the body – divide more slowly in a test tube. This could be expected, as statins slow access to the cholesterol building blocks needed for cell division.
However, slowing the division of stem cells is not necessarily speeding up the aging process (even if it might feel that way). As stem cells have a limited number of divisions it could actually preserve stem cells. It could be argued to likely slow the aging process.
Don’t believe every new alarm in the media. They are biased toward new shocking, especially negative, scary headlines. That’s what brings readers.
Bottom line on statins
Statins have proven side effects – like the risk of muscle pain, weakness, feeling tired and increasing the risk of type 2 diabetes. On the other hand they do reduce the risk of heart disease.
Thus statins should mainly be used by people with high risk of heart disease, meaning for example people who already have proven heart disease, like people who’ve already had a heart attack.
Statins are not vitamin pills. These are potent drugs, with a real risk of side effects.
David Diamond says they don't in this video.
He also wrote this.
But even Diamond and Ravnskov seem to agree in their paper that there is a proven benefit in reducing heart disease in secondary prevention?
"as we have shown, there is little evidence that statins provide a substantial benefit in secondary prevention"
"The absolute risk reduction of CVD mortality in secondary-preventive cholesterol-lowering trials is quite small, rarely exceeding two percentage points"
1-2 out of 100 may avoid CVD death.
98-99 out of 100 risk their health for no benefit.
How many of them will get cancer?
How many of them will get diabetes?
How many of them will get other complications?
Are you really saving lives or are you just harming them for no good reason?
I completely agree that patients should also be told the number they are most likely to completely understand, i.e. the 1% absolute reduction in risk.
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/the-great-cholesterol-myth
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.ab...
Zoe Harcombe has great information!
http://www.zoeharcombe.com/the-knowledge/we-have-got-cholesterol-comp...
So why the "Con"....$125 Billion.....that's what Lipitor has raked in...
the issue. I also recommend reading Dr Malcolm
Kendrick's book" The Great Cholesterol Con."
Or you come to me with persistent frequent migraine headaches, and I give a pill that has a 1% chance of working, even though it has significant expense and 4X the risk of side effects.
Or I ask people to get about with 5 watt microwave transmitters to their ears, expecting that the heating on the blood brain barrier will not cause brain tumours to develop.