Insanity? New Statin Guidelines
Uffe Ravnskov M.D.
Guidelines on the prevention of cardiovascular disease are published again and again from various expert committees.
Recently new ones were published by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA). They call them “The New Guidelines on the Treatment of Cholesterol to Reduce Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk in Adults”.
Treatment of cholesterol???
Is cholesterol a disease?
Don´t these so-called experts know that cholesterol is one of the most important molecules in our body?
Don´t they know that we use that molecule for producing cell walls, nerve fibres, sex and stress hormones, bile and vitamin D?
Don´t they know that it is so important that all cells are able to produce it themselves?
Don´t they know that we produce 3-5 times more cholesterol than we eat?
Don´t they know that our brain is unable to function probably without its steady production of this molecule?
We
have known that from the very beginning. There is not only a lack of an
association between cholesterol and atherosclerosis; there is no
association either between the degree of cholesterol lowering and the
outcome.
The
small benefit of statin treatment is the same whether cholesterol is
lowered a little or very much. No trial has ever shown anything else.
But
obviously the experts haven´t understood it themselves, or have they?
It is difficult for researchers who receive large amounts of money from
the drug companies, and several of the authors do that, to admit that
what they have told their colleagues and the population for many years
is wrong. I am confident that if they dare to do that, their names are
taken away from the industry payrolls immediately.
Instead
they present a calculator with which it is able to see who should be
recommended statin treatment. They claim that any person with a risk of
achieving cardiovascular disease that is higher than 7.5% during the
next ten years should be prescribed a statin drug.
With
the calculator you can for instance see what is considered necessary
for a woman age 65 without heart disease to avoid statin treatment. She
must have a cholesterol below 150 mg/dl, an HDL-cholesterol of at least
40 mg/dl, her systolic blood pressure must not be higher than 150
without treatment, and she must be a non-smoker without diabetes.
How many women of that age do you think belong to that category?
For
a man of that age it is even more difficult because his cholesterol
must not be higher than 130 mg/dl and his systolic blood pressure must
be lower than 105.
I think that only a Masai warrior is able to satisfy such demands.
The consequence is of course that most of adult mankind should take a statin every day for the rest of their life.
Also
diabetics are recommended statin treatment, even those who develop that
disease during the treatment. The evidence for that advice is the
small benefit achieved in a few statin trials.
Statin treatment causes diabetes, because they block the synthesis of insulin. Diabetes has been recorded in 3-4 % of statin-treated individuals after a few years.
The question is how many have diabetes after ten or twenty years of treatment?
Luckily
several researchers have warned the population. Read for instance an
article by John Abramson and his coworkers in New York Times. Click Here
Others
have criticized the risk calculator for overestimating the risk by
75-150%; read for instance the article in New York Times by Gina Kolata.
Click Here
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