LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

rosuvastatin

Statins Have Shocking Benefits in Diabetics

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Back to my favorite topic.  The statin class of drugs to lower cholesterol and prevent heart attacks.  Regular readers of the Rantings will know how I feel about this class of drugs.

To sum it up, they suck at preventing a first heart attack.  Without going into detail here, you can read an overview by clicking on a previous blog article here.

For those of you who have been living in a cave, the statin class of drugs (think Lipitor, Crestor) was designed and promoted to lower cholesterol.  By lowering cholesterol, we made a big jump in assuming that your risk of heart disease would also go down.  After years of the drugs being given out like candy, we realized that the statins just weren’t that good at preventing heart attacks.

Then the studies came out that found that total cholesterol really wasn’t all that great of a risk factor for heart disease anyway.  This left the statins in a huge vacuum.

Luckily, some creative researchers were able to create the idea that statins had “pleiotropic” effects–meaning that their benefit on heart disease was due to other factors besides cholesterol lowering.  The race was on to determine what these additional benefits might be.  Make sense, right?  We have a drug making billions of dollars, so we should find out what they’re good for, right?

First came inflammation as measured by CRP.  Trials (the biggest being the Jupiter trial) were done that looked at whether statins could lower inflammation as measured by CRP.  And it seems like statins were able to lower CRP levels.  Great, so now we have an expensive medication with a long list of side effects that lowers CRP.  The problem?  So does:

  1. Avoiding refined carbohydrates
  2. Losing weight lowers CRP
  3. Exercise lowers CRP
  4. Healthy fats lower CRP levels
  5. Increasing dietary fiber intake lowers CRP levels
  6. Increasing fruit and vegetable intake will lower CRP levels

Overall, when you compare lifestyle changes to statins in preventing heart disease and lowering CRP levels, there is no comparison.

So, scratch the possibility that we should look at statins and CRP levels and hang our prescription hat on this.

Which brings us to this particular study.  Researchers looked at 26 patients with type 2 diabetes taking either simvastatin 40 mg (Zocor) or atorvastatin 10 mg (Lipitor).  Here are the jaw dropping conclusions:

  1. Both lowered cholesterol levels about the same.
  2. Vitamin D levels were increased more in the atorvastatin group.
  3. While inflammation (CRP) and markers of oxidative stress (MDA) were lower, it was because of the higher vitamin D levels.

Sooooo..

Atorvastatin increases vitamin D levels.

A long list of side effects, $200 / month and really sucks at preventing heart attacks.  Why not just take vitamin D?

Atorvastatin Side Effects–Add a New One to the List

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$20+ billion in sales for a measly 1% drop in heart attack risk would be great if money didn’t matter and the list of atorvastatin side effects wasn’t expanding.

Regular readers of the Rantings know that I see very little reason for the statin class of drugs to exist and remain stumped that atorvastatin was one of the first drugs to reach $10 billion in annual sales.

The concern with statins to lower cholesterol is that they really suck at protecting the heart and brain from heart attacks and strokes (about a 1% lower risk).  And I guess, if this didn’t cost tens of billions of dollars per year, it would be ok to use them if there was no downside.  Unfortunately, the list of problems associated with statins just continues to grow.  I have covered the very small benefit of using statins to lower cholesterol and the increasing list of side effects in previous blog articles that can be read by clicking here and clicking here.

If I were to speak candidly (and I usually do…) I believe that the reason that this class of drugs is so popular is that most physicians just don’t know any better.  They don’t understand the medical literature and they don’t know how to recommend the right lifestyle changes to patients to lower cholesterol naturally.

I’ve mentioned before how an unsuspecting physician can get duped by a drug representative into thinking that atorvastatin or any other statin is a good thing for his or her patient.  This can be done by playing with absolute risk and relative risk when the doctor does not relate to statistics.

The other way medical literature gets misunderstood is by the physician who basically “title read” the studies on just how effective the statins are or studies mentioning the side effects of atorvastatin.

This particular study is a perfect example.  Basically, mainstream medicine would like to consider statins as the wonderdrug of the 21st century.  They have been put on a pedestal.  So, if they can doctors can be tricked into thinking they are good for the heart, what about other conditions?

Think how much more money atorvastatin could make if it could protect against arthritis?  It would renew the patent and make literally tens upon tens of billions of dollars for Pfizer.  So they run medical studies to see what sticks.

Could statins help to lower the risk of knee osteoarthritis symptoms?  Turns out that the answer is no.  The conclusion to this study reads, “Statin use was not associated with improvements in knee pain, function or structural progression over the 4-year study period.”

So, the title reading physician skims over the conclusion and moves on.  What they may miss in the results section of the study is this little tidbit:

  • The only significant finding indicated that increased duration of statin use was associated with worsening in pain and function scores (as measured by the WOMAC questionnaire) over the study period (Tweet this).

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!

The knee arthritis pain got worse?  In a study designed to see if statins would help?  And this little finding was glazed over and not included in the conclusion??

You would think that, if the results of a study found out the complete opposite of what you were hoping to find, this would be THE most important factor in the conclusion.  But alas, the game played with your health and your insurance dollar goes on.

Although this is a single study, do you think that this information on atorvastatin side effects should be shared with you if your doctor were to write you a prescription?

EFFECT ON INSULIN WITH HYPERLIPIDAEMIA – (09-29-05)

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Effect of rosuvastatin on insulin sensitivity in patients with familial combined hyperlipidaemia

Go ahead. I know you’re on the edge of your seats. Does this statin drug positively affect one of the most devastating physiological imbalances of our time in addition to lowering cholesterol levels which are really secondary to the hyperinsulinemia that is chipping away at the very foundation of a patient’s health? Read the article. Better yet, I’ll save you the time….NO…

Read entire article here

CHARACTERISTICS OF METABOLIC SYNDROME – (02-21-05)

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Effects of rosuvastatin, atorvastatin, simvastatin, and pravastatin on atherogenic dyslipidemia in patients with characteristics of the metabolic syndrome

Okay.  A couple problems here.  This study reviewed several statin drugs to determine which one lowered lipids better in patients with metabolic syndrome.  You know metabolic syndrome the condition where high INSULIN levels increase lipids.

So here’s my analogy:  Your house is on fire and the smoke detector is going off.  We take a baseball bat, hammer and the wrong end of a screwdriver and beat on the smoke detector to see which one breaks the detector into the smallest pieces.  Forget the fire–that’s not important.

And, just to be consistent with this study for my analogy, Astra Zeneca, the manufacturer of the hammer (which was found to be the most effective), paid for the study.  Suspicious?  And does anyone wonder why they didn’t check corresponding insulin levels?

Read entire article here