OT - Statins and You

Thanks for the post, Jan, I hadn't seen this latest installment of "The Straight Dope on Cholesterol" yet. I'm anxious for installment VII when Dr Attia will hopefully give his views on what to do about high LDL-p. As you recall, my LDL-p was elevated as measured by my recent NMR lipoprofile (see previous post) and I have taken steps to reduce it by restarting my statin while continuing on the HFLC diet. I chose this path because current thinking seemed to be that the risk of CAD seems to correlate with higher LDL-p as well as with higher triglyceride levels. I'm hoping the statin will bring down the LDL-p and Low carbs will bring down triglycerides. So far, we know that the HFLC has reduced my TG level some 70 points or so.

Exactly, Jay, you may fall into the group that Dr. Attia suggests treatment IS effective for. It will be interesting to see what treatments he recommends for someone with your profile. I'm guessing you'll be right on target with his recommendations.

I wonder how many decades will pass before LDL-P testing becomes standard???

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... &page=1024

"In conclusion, based on aggregate data on 65 229 men and women from 11 studies, yielding approximately 244 000 person-years of follow-up and 2793 deaths, we observed that statin therapy for an average period of 3.7 years had no benefit on all-cause mortality in a high-risk primary prevention population. Current prevention guidelines endorse statin therapy for subjects at high global risk of incident CVD as a means to reduce fatal and nonfatal vascular events.33 ,35 - 36 Due consideration is needed in applying statin therapy in lower-risk primary prevention populations."

Janknitz wrote:http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... &page=1024
"In conclusion, based on aggregate data on 65 229 men and women from 11 studies, yielding approximately 244 000 person-years of follow-up and 2793 deaths, we observed that statin therapy for an average period of 3.7 years had no benefit on all-cause mortality in a high-risk primary prevention population. Current prevention guidelines endorse statin therapy for subjects at high global risk of incident CVD as a means to reduce fatal and nonfatal vascular events.33 ,35 - 36 Due consideration is needed in applying statin therapy in lower-risk primary prevention populations."

Interesting article, Jan. I need to read it a couple more times, but I think it says, in additon to the conclusion, if you have heart disease, take statins,

"Statins have been shown to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality among individuals with clinical history of coronary heart disease.",

even though lowering cholesterol through the use of statins may not be the mechanism through which risk is reduced, since the study didn't seem to find a link between lower cholesterol and CVD.

Now, here's something else to consider. From the paper, we can conclude that age is the greatest risk factor for CHD. The study looked at people without clinically diagnosed heart disease. But, I would guess many aged without a clinical history of heart disease, do, in fact, have it. So, what did statins do for those folks? Don't know if we can tell, but it didn't jump out at me that statins helped old folks.

Like I said, I need to read it a few more times and maybe look at some of the other studies referred to as well. Anyway, I think we agree that high cholesterol alone does not necessarily warrant the risk of statins. However, for some of us old folks with clinically diagnosed heart disease, statins might be worth the risk.

Jay

Jay, that's exactly the point--there is a group of people for whom statins have been shown to be helpful--men (but not women) with pre-existing heart disease. The degree to which they are helpful is another question, but statins appear to be beneficial for that specific group.

And as for the rest . . .

There could be other underlying factors that improve the health of men with pre-existing heart disease who take statins and not the statins themselves. For instance, men who do take statins tend to have better health insurance plans (try buying statins w/o insurance) and consequently better paying jobs ... hence they also are more likely to afford other heart healthy lifestyle changes such as high quality food maybe included with healthfood chefs to make their lifestyle change easier to stick to, nice gyms memberships with trainers to help them maintain their physical activity, time off for stress relief vacations with massages from beautiful women, etc.

In other words, correlations only show statistical relationships, not the cause of the statistical relationships. Statistics can be misleading -- sometimes due to poor science, sometimes due to purposeful deception, and sometime just by plain accident.

I thought statins were $4/month at WalMart, Walgreen's, etc.??

I thought statins were $4/month at WalMart, Walgreen's, etc.??

Is your point that they are cheap so why not "just" take them?

Sleep2Die4 wrote:I thought statins were $4/month at WalMart, Walgreen's, etc.??

I quit taking statins a few years ago and the only generic available to me back then was simvastatin and the study databases had data from 1970 to 2009. But who cares?

My point was and still is :

correlations only show statistical relationships, not the cause of the statistical relationships.

And here is another point to add :

It's your health. Believe what you want. Despite having lost our entire Bill of Rights, you still have the right to believe what you want, WalMart and mainstream media will help you believe anything you want.

What about aspirin? My husband has taken one of the small ones daily for years even though he is very healthy.

I saw this article just now and wonder if my husband should discontinue the aspirin.

aking a daily low-dose aspirin to prevent heart disease may actually increase the risk of major gastrointestinal (GI) or cerebral bleeding, Italian researchers found.

"as [aspirin] may be more dangerous than it is protective."

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Prevention/33099

Is cerebral bleeding a stroke?

Janknitz wrote:

I thought statins were $4/month at WalMart, Walgreen's, etc.??

Is your point that they are cheap so why not "just" take them?

Not at all Janknitz. I was responding to this bit of demagoguery:

DreamStalker wrote: (try buying statins w/o insurance)

Yes, try. If you get the doctor to prescribe the right one aren't they $4.00 per month?? Just asking.

DreamStalker wrote: For instance, men who do take statins tend to have better health insurance plans (try buying statins w/o insurance) and consequently better paying jobs ...

I would also question how "men who have better health insurance plans consequently have better paying jobs".

Seems like the expert on statistics, causation and correlation is himself confused about cause and effect.

Study: Statins May Be Linked to Fatigue
Study Shows Statin Users More Likely to Report Low Energy or Fatigue During Exercise

http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-manage ... RSS_PUBLIC

The current usually recommended Statin is Crestor, which is beyond my budget at Wal Mart. Other statins, like Pravachol, and Simvistatin are much less.

According to Peter Attia, particle size may not be the best predictor of cardiovascular disease according to the latest thinking, but here's some research from within the ADA establishment too give you pause if your prescription for statins is because you have increased LDL: http://tristarpub.com/ada2012/?p=218

Interesting that the researcher came to some conclusions which are fully Discordant with his own findings.

We must still toe the party line!

Krauss has come a long way, doing a 180 from his early work. He finally figured out that ... "it's the carbs stupid".

It's been a couple of years since I was deep into this stuff (I remember when Krauss turned) but from what I recall, the excess carbs are metabolized by the liver into the pattern B small dense LDL which in turn are more easily trapped within the artery walls to become oxidized into plaque via glycation within the high blood sugar environment.

Sleep2Die4 wrote:....
I would also question how "men who have better health insurance plans consequently have better paying jobs".

Seems like the expert on statistics, causation and correlation is himself confused about cause and effect.

Sounds like a personal problem to me. You've obviously traumatized yourself with the WSJ.