http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2013/11/c ... terol.html
It goes on to discuss the risk/benefit issues:For years, clinical practice guidelines promulgated by prominent health care organizations have been hailed with accolades as received wisdom. However, there is increasing reason to be skeptical of such guidelines. Many guidelines are not based on rigorous application of the principles of evidence-based medicine, and often seem to arise from the personal opinions of their authors. This is particularly troublesome when those authors have conflicts of interest, and when the organizations that sponsor guideline development have institutional conflicts of interest. Back in 2011, an Institute of Medicine panel advocated standards for guideline development, including strict limits on conflicted panel members, to make their results more trustworthy. However, as we noted here, those standards have been largely ignored.
A recent commentary by Abramson et al in the British Medical Journal in October, 2013 outlines the issues.(2) There is no good evidence that statins used in primary prevention increase overall survival, or decrease overall incidence of adverse events, defined as death, hospital admission, prolongation of admission, cancer or permanent disability.
Anyway, I know I am mostly preaching to the choir on this issue but since I felt this was an excellent summary of the issues, I wanted to post this information. To read the rest of the blog entry, go to the above link.Furthermore, the guideline seemed unreasonably optimistic about the harms of statins. In particular, it ignored evidence about harms other than diabetes, myopathy (serious muscle disease), and stroke. Yet there is evidence suggesting that statins at least might cause "liver dysfunction, acute renal failure, and cataracts; cognitive symptoms, neuropathy, and sexual dsyfunction; decreased energy and exertional fatigue; and psychiatric symptoms, including depression, memory loss, confusion, and aggressive reactions" as summarized by Abramson and colleagues.
