Statins induce anti-inflammatory effects in upper airway inflammation
Statins induce anti-inflammatory effects in human airway epithelial inflammation. Statins may play a role in the treatment and prevention of chronic rhinosinusitis and pulmonary exacerbation of obstructive airway diseases.
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Against odds, Lipitor became world's top seller
finance.yahoo.comstuff like this pisses me off. All this money going into making people even more sick and people feeding into it because they think they are really controlling their health this way.
"Statins" and hemorrhagic stroke
January 11, 2011
A study published yesterday suggests that certain cholesterol lowering medications should be avoided in people who have a history of hemorrhagic stroke. This is getting tons of news, so many of you may be wondering why this is or if this applies to you.
The cholesterol lowering medications in question are the “statins”, including drugs such as Lipitor, Crestor, and Zocor. A hemorrhagic stroke is a stroke that occurs as a result of bleeding in the brain, as compared to an ischemic stroke which is usually caused by a blood clot.
I first want to point out that this is not breaking news. This has been a concern for several years now, ever since a major study showed that although statins are effective at preventing ischemic strokes in certain patients, they may cause an increased risk of hemorrhagic strokes. The benefit of preventing the ischemic strokes is so large though that it is usually worth the risk of the rarer hemorrhagic stroke. But the concern is that the benefit won’t be enough in people who have already had a hemorrhagic stroke before, since their risk of recurrence is very high.
The study published yesterday was not collecting any new information. This is important, since the type of study performed is not considered the best quality evidence for making decisions in the medical field. It was simply a mathematical model of information that we already know, used to simulate what the benefit/risk ratio of using a statin is in certain patients. The model suggests that the benefit does not outweigh the risk if someone has had a prior hemorrhagic stroke.
This could get insanely long and boring, so I’ll cut to the chase. Based on this study and the results of previous studies, in most cases it is probably too dangerous to take a statin if you have a history of hemorrhagic stroke. This can be said much more strongly if you have had the stroke recently. I do want to caution, however, that this is based on very limited scientific information. It is not known if lower doses of statins, or if statins other than Lipitor and Zocor increase hemorrhagic stroke risk. And in some patients with heart disease, the benefit of taking a statin might outweigh the risk of stroke anyway. There is often a fine line between a treatment being beneficial overall or being harmful overall, so it could differ for every individual. I will just encourage you to speak with your doctor if you have a history of hemorrhagic stroke and have been prescribed a statin.
Aaron Emmel, PharmD, BCNSP
Cholesterol and controversy - my guest blog on Scientific American
blogs.scientificamerican.comIf you are interested in learning about how we know what we know about cholesterol and heart disease, and also wish to find out about what we have yet to figure out, read on. I touch on the long road to accepting dietary cholesterol as a mediator of heart disease, if HDL is really the “good” cholesterol, and if we need to restructure our approach to statins. Enjoy!
Statins Shown to Cause Fatigue
health.ucsd.eduIn a study of more than 1,000 adults, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, found that individuals taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are more likely than non-users to experience decreased energy, fatigue upon exertion, or both. The researchers suggest that these findings should be taken into account by doctors when weighing risk versus benefit in prescribing statins.
Statin drugs are among the best selling and most widely used prescription drugs on the market. Recently, increasing attention has focused on statins’ side effects, particularly their effect on exercise. While some patients have reported fatigue or exercise intolerance when placed on statins, randomized trials had not previously addressed occurrence of fatigue-with-exertion or impaired energy in patients on statins relative to placebo.
In the June 11 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues present randomized trial data which show that these side effects were significantly greater in persons placed on statins than those on a placebo.
More than 1,000 adults from San Diego were randomly allocated to identical capsules with placebo, or one of two statins at relatively low potencies: pravastatin (Pravachol) at 40mg, or simvastatin (Zocor) at 20mg – chosen as the most water-soluble and most fat-soluble of the statins, at doses expected to produce similar LDL (“bad cholesterol”) reduction. According to the researchers, the cholesterol reduction would be similar to that expected with atorvastatin (Lipitor) at 10mg, or rosuvastatin (Crestor) at 2.5-5mg.
Potency Of Statins Linked To Muscle Side Effects
health.ucsd.eduA study from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, published August 22 online by PLoS ONE, reports that muscle problems reported by patients taking statins were related to the strength or potency of the given cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Adverse effects such as muscle pain and weakness, reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were related to a statin’s potency, or the degree by which it typically lowers cholesterol at commonly prescribed doses.
“These findings underscore that stronger statins bear higher risk – and should be used with greater caution and circumspection,” said investigator Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, professor in the Departments of Medicine and Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
Golomb teamed up with researchers from California-based AdverseEvents, Inc., using the company’s software platform to conduct a detailed examination of statin side-effect data from the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS). The study analyzed muscle-related adverse events linked to each of the major statin drugs in total of 147,789 AERS reports, gathered between July 2005 and March 2011.
Looking at the most commonly used statins – both brand names and, when available, generic forms of the drugs – rosuvastatin, the strongest statin, had the highest rates of reported problems. This was followed by atorvastatin, simvastatin, pravastatin, and lovastatin.
“These rankings closely match the individual potencies of each statin. Thus, the strength of the statin drug appears to be a dominant factor in determining how likely muscle problems are to occur,” said Golomb, who directs the Statin Adverse Effects Study at UC San Diego.
Rates were determined for each statin by tallying reports of muscle side effects, standardized to the number of prescriptions filled for that drug. This was done for individual muscle side effects, as well as for side effects overall.
Some experts have maintained that rosuvastatin, the strongest statin, should have superior safety, because it is less fat soluble, and was thereby assumed not to penetrate into muscle cells as much as other statins. In addition, rosuvastatin is not cleared by common drug-clearance pathways that are sometimes involved in adverse drug interactions.
“The FDA AERS data analyzed in this study, however, suggests that the higher potency of rosuvastatin may more than offset any safety advantages due to such factors,” Golomb said. She added that pooled analysis of statin studies in patients with stable heart disease do not indicate that higher strength statins result in a lower death rate. Therefore, “evidence showing that stronger statins may pose a greater risk of side effects is particularly important.
Statins vs. alternatives: The best way to lower your cholesterol
“Heart of the Matter”
Lancaster General Health
Confused about taking a statin to prevent heart disease? With the recent Food and Drug Administration limits placed on high-dose simvastatin—known as Zocor—it’s easy to forget that statins have revolutionized the treatment of high cholesterol.
For some reason, statins seem to be the “easy target” for many of my patients who bring an article in from the newspaper, read a magazine in the reception area, or want to share what they heard from their neighbor friend.
Almost invariably, someone reports that statins cause dementia, liver damage, or heard that an herbal supplement may be a better choice. While there are alternatives (albeit, not as effective) to statins and risks and side effects associated with statins, it’s easy to miss the overwhelming evidence behind our recommendations to take statins.
The Health, United States, 2010 report estimates 32 million Americans are on statin therapy, such as Zocor, Lipitor, or Crestor. The report goes on to say cholesterol levels and heart disease death rates are down, although other behaviors, such as diet and exercise, also contribute to the lower numbers.
The Dark Truth About the "Wonder Drug" Millions Swear By (Posted by Dr. Mercola, Oct 26, 2011)
The following is an excerpt from an article about statin drugs. Statins are drugs perscribed by doctors for high cholesterol.
“Statin drug side effects can easily be misdiagnosed as unrelated health problems, which leads to polypharmacy and unnecessary drug treatments. Statins are known to cause nerve- and muscle damage, and are contraindicated during pregnancy due to high risk of birth defects. They can also lead to a number of other health complications. The true dangers of statin drugs, which suppress the synthesis of cholesterol, are becoming increasingly apparent. Dr. Seneff provides a dozen sources for you to review to increase your knowledge base about this hazardous drug.” (Posted by Dr. Mercola, Oct 26, 2011)
Can Statins Cut the Benefits of Exercise?
An important new study suggests that statins, the cholesterol-lowering medications that are the most prescribed drugs in the world, may block some of the fitness benefits of exercise, one of the surest ways to improve health.
No one is saying that people with high cholesterol or a family history of heart disease should avoid statins, which studies show can be lifesaving. But the discovery could create something of dilemma for doctors and patients, since the people who should benefit the most from exercise — those who are sedentary, overweight, at risk of heart disease or middle-aged — are also the people most likely to be put on statins, possibly undoing some of the good of their workouts.
My Top Three WORST Drugs
bit.lyToo Many People Take Too Many Drugs. It has to stop. Of all the dangerous drugs on the market, there are three (categories) that I think are the worst. Take a look. Also, don’t miss the “comment” section.
"the heart is the dumbest organ in the body" - a pulmonoligst
So, I must apologize that I’ve been blowin it lately. I’ve started shadowing a cardiologist two weeks ago and have been using my non-asleep time to bone-up (people say that?) on cardio knowledge (and call of duty, but that’s because I’ve got an image to uphold). Turns out, I really like this stuff.
Unlike a specialty like neurology, cardiologists can treat and manage a lot of disease with a relatively decent amount of efficacy (I really like that). Like I mentioned in a previous post, statins have been used for quite some time to lower LDL by inhibiting HMG CoA Reductase - an enzyme essential to cholesterol sythesis. Download the free Epocrates app and learn more about them, if you’d like. Statins were originally discovered in red yeast rice. You can purchase red yeast rice if you really want, but you can get a generic statin for fairly cheap if you have insurance (if you actually need to be on a statin, you’d better get yourself some insurance! If you’re reading this and you live in Albuquerque, hit me up, I can help you get it for cheap or free.). Two reasons not to bother with the red yeast rice supplement:
1) Because of the DSHEA, producers don’t have to test their product for any trace of the active material. So, one capsule may have a lot of beneficial chemicals and the next may have little to none. I unfortunately don’t have the citation, but I’ve read findings of other chemicals, prescription drugs, and insect parts in some of these capsules (I will look for this rigorously sometime in the afternoon, so stay tuned).
2) Since we have identified the active/medicinal ingredient to red yeast rice, we can isolate it and control the dosage. Some people only need to take 10mg/day while others may be on 30mg/day or more. You’d be hard pressed to find an herbalist that can beat that.
The last take home from the statin example is that we took an “alternative” method, found out that it worked, made it better, and have adopted it to “western” or “modern” methods. I’ll probably say this a million times, but that is the big difference between CAM and evidence-based-medicine. We follow the evidence and science (at least, usually we follow the science), not what our gut tells us should work. Intuition is a big idiot that sees patterns where they don’t exist and can cause us to make some horrible decisions.
That’s all for today. I’m hitting the road for two weeks with my family (biological, not hardcore) tomorrow, but I will do my best to keep it together. Instead of listing the two citations, I’ll leave it to you to click the links.
Statin Drugs. Are they just a massive con?
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are some of the most widely used in the world, with annual sales in the USA alone of $15.5bn – and they may also be some of the most ineffective.
A major new study of 4,574 patients with chronic heart disease has revealed that the drugs do nothing to extend life or prevent hospital care.
This new finding, made by researchers from the ANMCO Research Centre in Florence, adds weight to a similar conclusion made by Harvard researchers last year.
The Italian research team tracked the progress of the heart patients, who were given either the statin drug Crestor (rosuvastatin) or a placebo. More of the patients in the Crestor group died, and more needed hospital care, than those given a placebo. Overall, 1305 patients in the statin group died from their heart condition or were admitted to hospital, compared with 1283 from the placebo group.
These new findings reflect those made by the Harvard research team when they carried out a meta-analysis of eight trials and discovered that the drugs had no positive effect on the health of 10,990 women who were taking a statin, and only a very marginal benefit for men.
The Harvard team also noted that just 8 per cent of those taking a statin actually had a heart condition; in other words, it was a ‘just-in-case’ remedy.
Although it is ineffective, the statin isn’t without its own health concerns. The drug has been linked to Parkinson’s disease and, paradoxically, heart disease.
(Source: The Lancet, 2008; 372: 1231-9 (Italian study); The Lancet, 2007; 369: 268-9 (Harvard study)).
High-dose statins raise risk of diabetes
Taking a high-dose statin to lower cholesterol may increase risk of developing diabetes by as much as 12 percent, but the heart benefits of statins still outweigh the risks, new research suggests.
Statins such as Pfizer’s Lipitor are the world’s best-selling drugs. They work by lowering levels of low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, the so-called “bad” cholesterol.
Doctors say the new research made public on Tuesday should not prompt any patients to stop taking statins, but patients on high doses of statins should get screened regularly for diabetes.
Read the story here
Statins Improve Outcome of Surgery
Numerous studies have demonstrated that statins improve the outcomes of patients undergoing surgery.
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The Good Cholesterol, Bad Cholesterol & Ugly Facts
johnsonevans.hubpages.comSite that compares lowering cholesterol naturally versus statin overuse.
