Part 3, Dangerous High Cholesterol Drugs

January 29, 2010

This series of articles is an educational opportunity in addition to a warning about the dangerous side effects that may be waiting for you in the shadows if you take these medicines. Unless you start taking control of yourself and your diet, taking Statins like Lipitor will give you more than you bargained for. We all look at the side effects and minimize them, but this time, those of us who take Lipitor need to educate ourselves about alternatives to taking this medicine.

Apparently, the Pharmaceutical companies have made it attractive for our physicians and practitioners to prescribe these obviously dangerous drugs, and for what? From what I’ve read by Ms Fallon and Dr. Enig, our bodies create cholesterol to help create normal body and brain function. Let’s read the final segment of this unbelievably important information to find out what the authors recommended at the time (2004).

Creative Advertising

The best advertising for statin drugs is free front-page coverage following gushy press releases. But not everyone reads the paper or goes in for regular medical exams, so statin manufacturers pay big money for creative ways to create new users. For example, a new health awareness group called the Boomer Coalition supported ABC’s Academy Awards telecast in March of 2004 with a 30-second spot flashing nostalgic images of celebrities lost to cardiovascular disease–actor James Coburn, baseball star Don Drysdale and comedian Redd Foxx. While the Boomer Coalition sounds like a grass roots group of health activists, it is actually a creation of Pfizer, manufacturers of Lipitor. “We’re always looking for creative ways to break through what we’ve found to be a lack of awareness and action,” says Michal Fishman, a Pfizer spokeswoman. “We’re always looking for what people really think and what’s going to make people take action,” adding that there is a stigma about seeking treatment and many people “wrongly assume that if they are physically fit, they aren’t at risk for heart disease.”66 The Boomer Coalition website allows visitors to “sign up and take responsibility for your heart health,” by providing a user name, age, email address and blood pressure and cholesterol level.

A television ad in Canada admonished viewers to “Ask your doctor about the Heart Protection Study from Oxford University.” The ad did not urge viewers to ask their doctors about EXCEL, ALLHAT, ASCOT, MIRACL or PROSPER, studies that showed no benefit–and the potential for great harm–from taking statin drugs.

The Costs

Statin drugs are very expensive–a course of statins for a year costs between $900 and $1400. They constitute the mostly widely sold pharmaceutical drug, accounting for 6.5 percent of market share and 12.5 billion dollars in revenue for the industry. Your insurance company may pay most of that cost, but consumers always ultimately pay with higher insurance premiums. Payment for statin drugs poses a huge burden for Medicare, so much so that funds may not be available for truly lifesaving medical measures.

In the UK, according to the National Health Service, doctors wrote 31 million prescriptions for statins in 2003, up from 1 million in 1995, at a cost of 7 billion pounds–and that’s just in one tiny island.67 In the US, statins currently bring in 12.5 billion dollars annually for the pharmaceutical industry. Sales of Lipitor, the number-one-selling statin, are projected to hit 10 billion dollars in 2005.

Even if statin drugs do provide some benefit, the cost is very high. In the WOSCOP clinical trial, in which healthy people with high cholesterol were treated with statins, the five-year death rate for treated subjects was reduced by a mere 0.6 percent. As Dr. Ravnskov points out,68 to achieve that slight reduction, about 165 healthy people had to be treated for five years to extend one life by five years. The cost for that one life comes to 1.2 million dollars. In the most optimistic calculations, the costs to save one year of life in patients with CHD is estimated at 10,000 dollars, and much more for healthy individuals. “This may not sound unreasonable,” says Dr. Ravnskov. “Isn’t a human life worth 10,000 dollars or more?”

“The implication of such reasoning is that to add as many years as possible, more than half of mankind should take statin drugs every day from an early age to the end of life. It is easy to calculate that the costs for such treatment would consume most of any government’s health budget. And if money is spent to give statin treatment to all healthy people, what will remain for the care of those who really need it? Shouldn’t health care be given primarily to the sick and the crippled?”

Sidebar Articles

A Better Way

If statins work, they do so by reducing inflammation, not because they lower cholesterol. Statins block the production of mevalonate leading to inhibition of platelet clumping and reduction of inflammation in the artery walls. However, simple changes in the diet can achieve the same effect without also cutting off the body’s vital supply of cholesterol:

  • Avoid trans fats, known to contribute to inflammation
  • Avoid refined sugars, especially fructose, known to stimulate clumping of the blood platelets
  • Take cod liver oil, an excellent dietary source of anti-inflammatory vitamin A, vitamin D and EPA
  • Eat plenty of saturated fats, which encourage the production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins
  • Take evening primrose, borage or black currant oil, sources of GLA which the body uses to make anti-inflammatory prostaglandins
  • Eat foods high in copper, especially liver; copper deficiency is associatied with clot formation and inflammation in the arteries
  • Eat coconut oil and coconut products; coconut oil protects against bacteria and viruses that can lead to inflammation in the artery wall
  • Avoid reduced-fat milks and powdered milk products (such as powdered whey); they contain oxidized cholesterol, shown to cause irritation of the artery wall

Dietary Trials

Doctors and other health professionals claim there is ample proof that animal fats cause heart disease while they confidently advise us to adopt a lowfat diet; actually the literature contains only two studies involving humans that compared the outcome (not markers like cholesterol levels) of a diet high in animal fat with a diet based on vegetable oils, and both showed that animal fats are protective.

The Anti-Coronary Club project, launched in 1957 and published in 1966 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, compared two groups of New York businessmen, aged 40 to 59 years. One group followed the so-called “Prudent Diet” consisting of corn oil and margarine instead of butter, cold breakfast cereals instead of eggs and chicken and fish instead of beef; a control group ate eggs for breakfast and meat three times per day. The final report noted that the Prudent Dieters had average serum cholesterol of 220 mg/l, compared to 250 mg/l in the eggs-and-meat group. But there were eight deaths from heart disease among Prudent Dieter group, and none among those who ate meat three times a day (JAMA 1966 Nov 7;198(6):597-604; Bulletin NY Academy of Medicine 1968).

In a study published in the British Medical Journal, 1965, patients who had already had a heart attack were divided into three groups: one group got polyunsaturated corn oil, the second got monounsaturated olive oil and the third group was told to eat animal fat. After two years, the corn oil group had 30 percent lower cholesterol, but only 52 percent of them were still alive. The olive oil group fared little better–only 57 percent were alive after two years. But of the group that ate mostly animal fat, 75 percent were still alive after two years (British Medical Journal 1965 1:1531-33).

What About Aspirin?

The other drug recommended for prevention of heart attacks and strokes is aspirin. Estimates suggest that 20 million persons are taking aspirin daily for prevention of vascular accidents. Yet at least four studies have shown no benefit. A study using Bufferin (aspirin and magnesium) showed no reduction in fatal heart attacks and no improvement in survival rate but a 40 percent decrease in the number of nonfatal heart attacks. Commentators reported these results as showing the benefit of aspirin, ignoring the fact that magnesium is of proven benefit in heart disease. Aspirin inhibits the enzyme Delta-6 Desaturase, needed for the production of Gamma-Linoleic Acid (GLA) and important anti-inflammatory prostaglandins. This fact explains many of aspirin’s side effects, including gastrointestinal bleeding and increased risk of macular degeneration and cataract formation. Other side effects include increased risk of pancreatic cancer, acid reflux, asthma attacks, kidney damage, liver problems, ulcers, anemia, hearing loss, allergic reactions, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness and even hallucinations (James Howenstine, NewsWithViews.com, April 21, 2004).

Late-Breaking Cholesterol News

Researchers at the Tulane University School of Medicine used electron beam tomography (EBT) to measure the progression of plaque buildup in heart-attack patients taking statin drugs. EBT is a very accurate way to measure occlusion from calcium in the arteries. Contrary to expectations, the researchers discovered that the progression of coronary artery calcium (CAC) was significantly greater in patients receiving statins compared with event-free subjects despite similar levels of LDL-lowering. Said the researchers: “Continued expansion of CAC may indicate failure of some patients to benefit from statin therapy and an increased risk of having cardiovascular events (Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol, April 1, 2004).

Doctors have discovered that injections of a certain substance can reverse heart disease in some patients. The therapy has helped reduce the amount of plaque in the arteries, thereby negating the need for angioplasty and open heart surgery. That substance is HDL-cholesterol (www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert, March 1, 2004).

The Melbourne Women’s Midlife Health Project measured cholesterol levels annually in a group of 326 women aged 52-63 years. During the eighth annual visit, subjects took a test that assessed memory. They found that higher serum concentrations of LDL-cholesterol and relatively recent increases in total cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were associated with better memory in healthy middle-aged women (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2003;74:1530-1535.)

Read the Fine Print

Statin Ad Statin Ad Fine Print

The picture in a recent ad for Lipitor implies that cholesterol-lowering is for everyone, even slim young women. However, in the fine print we learn that Lipitor “has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks”! If the makers of Lipitor need to provide this disclaimer, after millions of dollars invested in studies, why should anyone risk side effects by taking their drug?

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This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Spring 2004.

About the Authors

Sally Fallon MorellSally Fallon Morell is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (with Mary G. Enig, PhD), a well-researched, thought-provoking guide to traditional foods with a startling message: Animal fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. She joined forces with Enig again to write Eat Fat, Lose Fat, and has authored numerous articles on the subject of diet and health. The President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, Sally is also a journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker, and community activist. Her four healthy children were raised on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.

Mary G. Enig, PhDMary G. Enig, PhD is an expert of international renown in the field of lipid biochemistry. She has headed a number of studies on the content and effects of trans fatty acids in America and Israel, and has successfully challenged government assertions that dietary animal fat causes cancer and heart disease. Recent scientific and media attention on the possible adverse health effects of trans fatty acids has brought increased attention to her work. She is a licensed nutritionist, certified by the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists, a qualified expert witness, nutrition consultant to individuals, industry and state and federal governments, contributing editor to a number of scientific publications, Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association. She is the author of over 60 technical papers and presentations, as well as a popular lecturer. Dr. Enig is currently working on the exploratory development of an adjunct therapy for AIDS using complete medium chain saturated fatty acids from whole foods. She is Vice-President of the Weston A Price Foundation and Scientific Editor of Wise Traditions as well as the author of Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol, Bethesda Press, May 2000. She is the mother of three healthy children brought up on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.

As you can see, the authors of this article are very well credentialed and have backed up their article with an extensive bibliography. My only advice to you is to talk with your doctor before stopping any medication, but if you have experienced neuropathies or severe memory loss, the type spoken about in this information, I would definitely bring it to your physician’s attention. This is very important. If your physician doesn’t do anything about it, get another opinion.

By Diane | Posted in High Cholesterol | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Do You Take Tylenol For A Headache?

November 25, 2009

This morning, I woke up with a headache. I can count the times I’ve had a headache on one hand and one foot. Most of the time, a headache is due to sinuses. Today was different. I got up and went to the medicine cabinet to get some Tylenol or acetaminophen.

Tylenol, or its generic equivalent acetaminophen, comes in tablets, caplets, capsules, fast-acting gelcaps, and liquid. The tablets get stuck in my throat, so I get the capsules, caplets, or gelcaps because they go down easier. My doctor tells me that I shouldn’t take too many acetaminophen capsules, because they are metabolized in the liver. You have to be very careful about how much liquor you drink if you take Tylenol regularly, because alcohol is metabolized by the liver also. Now, I’m in a quandry. What else can I take to get rid of a headache?

The other medicines I have in my medicine cabinet are ibuprofen (Advil) and naproxen (Aleve). The ibuprofen works really well because it is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, an NSAID. This medicine is not a steroid; however, it works nicely to take away the inflammation due to joint pain and inflammation (arthritis), muscle pulls and strains, headaches, menstrual cramps, fever, neck pain, and toothaches (to name just a few conditions). The difference between Advil and Aleve is how long each one takes the pain away. If you have ibuprofen in the house, you have to take these every 4 to 6 hours, about 8 tablets per day. However, Aleve works for a much longer time. You don’t need to take this medicine every 4 to 6 hours, you take it every 12 hours. You only need to take 2 tablets in 24 hours.

Ibuprofen and naproxen also have side effects. These include: skin rashes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation. Ibuprofen can cause stomach irritation or ulcers (depending upon how long you’ve been taking it), and intestinal bleeding.  A person who drinks alcohol must be very careful while taking ibuprofen or naproxen because these medicines are metabolized in the liver, just like Tylenol. You also have to be careful if you take cardiovascular drugs and ibuprofen, because these medicines could cause a stroke.

If you take lithium daily, don’t take ibuprofen or naproxen on a continuous basis, because they could cause your lithium not to work for you. These medicines could also cause a problem if you take high blood pressure medicine or blood thinners, so my recommendation is to ask your doctor before you take NSAIDs for headaches or other mild to moderate pain. Also, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, please don’t take ibuprofen (Advil) or naproxen (Aleve).

The third medicine I would like to tell you about is codeine. Codeine is an opioid narcotic used to help mild to moderate pain. The opioid works by attaching to opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and the gastrointestinal area inhibiting or blocking the perception of pain. Codeine is also used to treat non-productive cough.

Side effects of codeine include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, stomach pain, dizziness, difficulty breathing, skin reactions, vision problems, the possibility of addiction (depending on how long you take this medicine), and seizures. Addiction means that your brain needs the medicine because it makes you feel good. I want to make it clear here that taking pain medicine for a week or two will not create an addiction or drug dependence. If you are having severe pain and over-the-counter medicines do not help, please don’t be afraid to take Tylenol, Ibuprofen, or Aleve or any opioid prescribed by your physician, as long as you take it as directed until the severe pain subsides. If you begin to enjoy this medicine because you get a feeling of well-being when you take it, and you don’t have pain anymore, then you may be addicted. If this is the case, you need to go to your physician and ask for help.

You should not take codeine or any other narcotic medications during pregnancy or breastfeeding. If you do, the fetus will become addicted to this medication also. Don’t put your baby in jeopardy by taking any narcotics or smoking while pregnant.

If you have any questions or would like to comment, I would love to see them. Education is very important when it comes to over-the-counter medicines and prescription painkillers. Don’t be afraid to take opioid medications for pain because they are very effective; however, be mindful that if you abuse the medicine like taking too many or not taking them as directed, you will cause harm to your body.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! I wish all my readers and their families a very Happy Thanksgiving! There will not be an article written tomorrow; however, I will see you all again on Friday. Take care, and don’t eat too much turkey :) ))!

By Diane | Posted in Medication Information, The Power of Education | Tagged , , | Comments (0)