LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Heart Disease, Stroke, Blood Pressure Tips

Cholesterol Lowering Drugs and Diabetes: Just How Bad is It?

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aspirin to protect your heart
Sergey Yarochkin/Dollar Photo Club

It is now clear that cholesterol lowering drugs cause diabetes. But the proponents have clearly stated that the risk was in those already at risk.

Ironically, pretty much everyone with cholesterol issues is, to some degree, already on his or her way to developing diabetes. Giving a drug that is now proven to push patients along this pathway faster just seems a wee bit on the crazy side.

This article is not about the fact that statins suck at preventing heart disease. Because they do. Across the board statins pretty much lower your risk of having a heart attack by a paltry, sad 1%. High cholesterol, low cholesterol high CRP….doesn’t matter. One percent is the magic number. Your protection from heart disease will really not go above this level of protection.

Patients will respond by saying that the cholesterol drug he or she is taking lowered his or her cholesterol. Big deal. Do you REALLY care what your cholesterol is??? No. You just don’t want to have a heart attack or stroke. Well guess what—your cholesterol level dropping has very little to do with whether or not you are going to have a heart attack.

THAT is the big problem with statins. This delusional idea that artificially lowering your cholesterol with a drug (as opposed to lifestyle changes) will protect the heart is dangerous.

For those of you who would like to know more, I elaborate quite a bit in my Cholesterol Lowering eBook that can be found on Amazon by clicking here.

Back to this particular study. In it, researchers looked at the statin / diabetes link in greater detail. They looked at 4,645 patients who already had vascular disease but no diabetes. Of this group, 3,057 of them were taking statins at the beginning of the study, and 1,608 of these were on high-doses (intensive statin therapy–statin therapy theoretically lowering LDL cholesterol more than 40%).

Here’s what they found:

  • Statin use increased the risk of developing diabetes by 63%.
  • Those on intensive statin therapy had an even higher 22% risk of developing diabetes.
  • Here’s the shocker: the increase in risk had NO relationship to whether or not the statin user was already at risk for diabetes or not.
  • As a matter of fact, the greatest risk was in those patients who were LESS likely to on their way to diabetes (baseline glucose levels less than <120 mg/dl or 5.6 mmol/L).

Less just review this a second. People with elevated cholesterol are, in almost all cases, already on the way to developing diabetes. These patients are then put on drugs to lower cholesterol levels but do almost nothing to actually prevent a heart attack or stroke (which, BTW, is the main reason that diabetics leave this planet).

These drugs will then, paradoxically, further increase the risk of diabetes that the patient already had.

But, if you’re one of the luckier ones who was NOT on your way to diabetes but had high cholesterol, the drug you are put on will now pretty much ensure that you ARE on your way to diabetes.

Umm…am I the only one who seems to think this is a problem? Especially considering that the new ACC/AHA guidelines will drastically increase the number of patients who will be given prescriptions for statins.

No wonder heart disease is still the #1 killer in the industrialized world.

Cholesterol Lowering Drugs & Your Good Cholesterol–Bad News

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aspirin to protect your heart
Sergey Yarochkin/Dollar Photo Club

Despite all the less-than-stellar research on cholesterol lowering drugs, the powers-that-be want us to take even more of it.

The latest “cholesterol guidelines” released late in 2013 have drastically increased the number of patients who would potentially be given a statin.  They have finally dropped the fallacy that total cholesterol has any value (you know–total cholesterol–that lab value that you were taught to pay attention to so doctors would know when to put you on a cholesterol lowering medication..) and basically state that you should be given a statin if your doctor THINKS you might be at risk for a heart attack.

I have certainly been a vocal opponent of the statin class of drugs because the numbers just don’t make any sense.  Treat 1,000 people for 5 years to prevent 11 heart attacks (instead of 22 people who would’ve had heart attackes without the drugs), while at the same time causing diabetes in 8 more.  A net gain of 3.  Out of a thousand.  In 5 years.

That just sucks in my book.

And “they” think we should use it more on more patients.  None of this takes into account the very long list of side effects from this class of drugs (other then the already mentioned increased risk of diabetes).

And, as we treat more and more patients with cholesterol lowering drugs, the amount of people experiencing side effects is just going to skyrocket.  But at least they are not going to have a heart attack because of the statin drugs.

Right?

I guess that all depends.

This particular study looks at one of those little-known secrets about drugs to lower cholesterol.  While they all lower cholesterol levels (for whatever that is worth), in some individuals the drugs also lower HDL (the “good”) cholesterol.  This is generally not a good thing.  Specifically, researchers looked at 724 patients who had just started treatment with statins after having a heart attack and followed for 6 to 9 months.

Eighty-six percent (620) of these patients had his or her HDL-C level increase during the course of the study, while 14% (104) of patients had his or her HDL cholesterol go down.  Here’s what the researchers found when they looked closer at the group that had HDL levels drop:

  • Both groups had their LDL cholesterol levels drop below 100 mg/dl.
  • Adverse cardiovascular events (including death from all causes, heart attacks and stroke) happened more frequently in the decreased HDL group.
  • To be precise, this lower HDL group had these events at over TWICE the rate (15.4% vs 7.1%).
  • Overall, those who had lowered HDL as a result of the statin drugs (to protect the heart, I might add) were 95% more likely to have a cardiac event.

Let’s get this straight.  A drug given to lower cholesterol levels actually lowered good cholesterol levels in 14% of those patients taking them.  In this 14%, they were 95% MORE likely to have a cardiac event??

THIS is the wonder drug that seemingly all of medicine is hanging their hats on to save the world from heart disease?  I‘ll take lifestyle changes, thank you.

 

High Dose Vitamin D and Blood Vessel Health

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In this study looking at high dose vitamin D and blood vessel health (endothelial dysfunction), I’d like to point out the dosages used.  I have previously brought up the concept of overdose of Vitamin D, but look at the levels used in this study!!  10,000 / day for 3 months with no problems…  I know that I personally don’t usually exceed 6,000 / day, but the results of this study are pretty impressive.

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Diabetes and Drugs to Lower Cholesterol

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DO THE DRUGS THAT LOWER CHOLESTEROL ACTUALLY MAKE THE CONDITION WORSE?

It is a sad state that most cases of elevated cholesterol are actually due to being pre-diabetic.  How do we know?  Look for lowered HDL and elevated triglycerides.  Clear sign.  So, enter mainstream medicine and respond with knee-jerk reaction.  Give statins.  Numbers look better.  Doctor is very happy.  Patient is deluded into thinking everything is OK.  Numbers great, no need for lifestyle changes.  Everyone’s happy.  Including the OTHER drug company that makes diabetic drugs, because more evidence is mounting that statins INCREASE THE RISK OF DIABETES, WHICH IS WHAT WAS WRONG IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!  UGH!!!  This, more than anything, is one of the most frustrating “fixes” in mainstream medicine to me.  And stay tuned for the next update, which finally begins to admit that statins do nothing to protect against that first heart attack..

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Aspirin to Prevent Heart Disease; Are You STILL Taking It?

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aspirin to protect your heart
Sergey Yarochkin/Dollar Photo Club

Everyone’s doin’ it. TV ads say you should be doin’ it. Your doctor says you should be doin’ it. But should you really take aspirin for your heart?

For a very long time, this answer was a strong, positive “YES.”  After all-aspirin thins the blood so it would make sense for aspirin to lower your risk of a heart attack, right?

Yes, and hormone replacement therapy for women was a great idea as well.  At least until someone decided to really look at this multi-billion dollar drug industry and found that HRT actually caused everything you were told it would help.  Oops.

So for decades, doctors and advertising messages bombarded you with the idea that aspirin will protect your heart.  The problem is that this was largely a theory that was promoted to you as fact.  But, over a decade ago (2001 to be exact), studies were published finding no benefit to taking aspirin in low-risk individuals.  That means that, for the average person, he or she was taking a drug well-known to lead to bleeding ulcers, kidney damage, strokes, macular degeneration and even pancreatic cancer, all with the idea that it was good for his or her heart.

It took another decade for further studies to make it to the limelight, but in 2010 another study was published and again found no benefit to using aspirin to protect the heart.  Two large meta-analysis of multiple studies published in 2011 also found no benefit to using aspirin to prevent a first heart attack (primary prevention).

At this point, I was SURE that this was the death of aspirin to prevent a first heart attack (the data is a little stronger if you’ve already had a heart attack), but I still have patients taking aspirin for their heart.  And they seemed shocked to hear that it really has no benefits (ok…if you treat 1000 patients with aspirin for 5 years, 2.9 less people with have a heart attack, although 2.8 will experience a major bleed due to the aspirin.  Net gain of 1 person out of 10,000 patients.  So I guess I can’t say that there is NO benefit to aspirin..).

Just in case you still aren’t convinced, this particular study should put your confusion to rest.  In it, researchers looked at 22,576 patients who were at least 50 years of age with stable heart disease that required high blood pressure medications.  These patients were grouped into an “ischemic” group if they had a history of unstable angina, myocardial infarction, transient ischemic attack, or stroke while all others were grouped as “non-ischemic.”  Here’s what they found:

  • 56.7% of all participants used aspirin, which increased to 69.3% by the end of the study.
  • In the “non-ischemic” group aspirin actually INCREASED the risk of a heart attack, stroke or dying by 11%.
  • However, in  the “ischemic” group aspirin did lower the risk of a heart attack, stroke or death by 13%.

For those of us who have NOT had a heart attack, this is NOT good news.  Given the previous studies on aspirin over the past 14 years or so, the results of this study are no surprised at all.

What I will suggest is what I have suggested to all my patients–relying on a single drug (with side effects) to try to change your risk of heart attack instead of making wise lifestyle choices is just plain stupid.  And yet sadly, this is what society promotes.

If you’d like to get a good start on protecting your heart without aspirin, feel free to check out my heart disease eBook on Amazon by clicking here.

 

Did YOUR Doctor Talk About Prediabetes?

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IS YOUR DOCTOR EDUCATING YOU?
The latin interpretation of “doctor” is “teacher” and this should be first and foremost our jobs.  Patients generally do not have the background in physiology that is needed to more clearly understand what is happening to them and help them make the right changes to improve health.  Unfortunately, this is not happening.  In this particular study, patients with low levels of HDL (which is a pre-diabetic scenario) who saw their PCP or cardiologist left the office visit woefully uneducated.  Only 6% of the visit was related to the problem at hand.  This is absolutely unacceptable.  How can patients understand that lifestyle changes absolutely can impact their condition??  I can tell you, that in my office, I make it VERY clear that these types of patients are well on their way to diabetes.  Whether they choose to make the changes is up to them.  It is MY job to educate the patient and make sure that they understand the severe consequences that ignoring their lifestyle will create.

Migraines and Stroke Risk

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IS YOUR MIGRAINE DANGEROUS?
Other than the obvious brain tumor causing a headache (which is actually not common for some brain tumors like gliomas), the answer is YES.  First off, let’s clarify something.  Many, if not most, patients who come in telling me they have a migraine do not actually, have migraines.  Most are tension type headaches in disguise.  Which is good, because these are usually pretty easy to treat.  Migraines, however, are the brain’s way of screaming out that it’s not happy about the health of the body.  So medications that suppress migraines and don’t fix the body do NOTHING for the long term risks of heart disease and stroke that migraines are at risk for.  The ONLY correct approach to migraine treatment is to comprehensive address the patients lifestyle.  If you have migraines and your neurologist or PCP has not talked to you about lifestyle changes for your migraines, maybe it’s time to find a new one.