the scam of the new heart attack risk calculator

[jp1]

Reading this thread and how most, if not all, 70 year old men should be on statins based on these new guidelines makes me wonder if the difference in lifespan between men and women is somehow related. Perhaps they're onto something. On the other hand I don't especially want to live to be 90 just for the sake of living that long if I'm going to spend 20 years taking a medicine that has dreadful side effects.

SO, 48 years old, started taking statins 3 months ago at his doc's recommendation, as well as iron because he's anemic. It's been a few months now and he feels way worse all the time than he did prior to going to the doc. The muscle aches alone would be enough to make me seriously reconsider whether I thought it was worth it.

[kib]

Oh this whole thing makes me want to spit. Elevated cholesterol is a response, not a disease. Why can't this country address underlying issues instead of selling bandaids that barely work and usually make things worse. Oh, yes, the operant word ... SELLING.

[herbgeek]

My parents have both been on statins for years. They are super forgetful and both have bad bone pains. I've been telling dad about the bad side effects so long dad tapered off the meds to none and says he hasn't felt this good in years. They are of the generation where the doctor is always right and not to be questioned, so that's huge he did that. Dad is much more with it and energetic. He just wrote it off as old age and not side effects.

[enota]

We have been taught to fear the word "risk" with the implication that it means a level of certainty when, in fact, it does not. For instance, if you are a mountain climber you have a much higher risk of dying while mountain climbing than someone who never sets foot on a mountain. But that certainly does not mean you are going to die while doing it. The same holds true with nearly everything.

I am sick (no pun intended) of the medical profession terrorizing people into taking far more medication that is necessary or reasonable and putting America (and apparently other countries as well), into some kind of false panic in the name of profit. Shame on them.

I will tell you that as far as I am concerned, high blood pressure medicine is no better. I am convinced that one of the reasons that so many elder folk are getting Alzheimer's is because they are not getting enough blood to their brains courtesy of their hypertension meds, but of course, nobody will admit to that.

[JaneV2.0]

My mother's cognitive function went on the skids when a doctor put her on what I call the "geriatric cocktail." A friend of mine ended up with a constellation of cascading problems that culminated in kidney failure. Elevated cholesterol is associated with longer life in the elderly. And no wonder--your nervous system is made of it.You'll get me on that crap when you tie me down and put a gun to my head. If then.


ETA: Blood pressure medication is implicated in many falls (one of the leading causes of death and disability in the elderly) because of orthostatic hypertension. They stand up, become light-headed and disoriented, and fall. There are no benign pharmaceuticals.

[reader99]

Oh this whole thing makes me want to spit. Elevated cholesterol is a response, not a disease. Why can't this country address underlying issues instead of selling bandaids that barely work and usually make things worse. Oh, yes, the operant word ... SELLING.

Thank you. Exactly. When they start addressing the underlying inflammation problem I'll have some respect for it.

[The Storyteller]

A few thoughts...

I have been on a high dosage of statins for over 10 years now and have had zero side effects.

If someone is having severe side effects to any drug, they probably shouldn't be on it. My wife has high cholesterol and the doctor tried various brands of statins (different ones affect different people differently) and they all had side effects, so he took her off. She now only uses diet and fish oil tablets.

Calculators don't prescribe medicine. Doctors do.

If your GP prescribes a statin, ask for a referral to a cardiologist. If the cardiologist agrees, take the statins.

Cholesterol does in fact cause hardening of the arteries and heart disease. Yes, inflammation can be a contributing factor, but it is cholesterol that does the actual damage.

Hardening of the arteries occurs in more than one place in your body. If it is affecting your heart, it is also affecting your legs, arms, and brain and is one of the contributing factors in dementia.

Diet does affect all this. You start with diet and can avoid all this, but if you already have arteriosclerosis, you probably need statins, too, at least to reverse it as quickly as possible. Once it is reversed, you can relax on the statins. That is why my cardiologist wants me to wait a year before possibly adjusting my drugs.

You are free to ignore Internet calculators. I routinely do.

You are free to ignore your doctor's advice. She isn't going to hold a gun to your head.

But I wouldn't advise it.

[JaneV2.0]

http://phys.org/news203844242.html
Just one of many articles suggesting cholesterol is protective. (Japanese study)

http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/bo...65&chapterID=2 (women and LDL)

"Another study showed that statins not only fail to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke in people between seventy and eighty-two years old who don’t already have heart disease, but they significantly increase the risk of cancer in this population (by 25 percent).22 Other studies have not found a higher cancer risk with statin use, but the people in those studies were much younger.

Another study found that for women who have reached the age of sixty-five, not only is high cholesterol not a health risk, but—going directly against our common wisdom—the higher older women’s bad (LDL) cholesterol levels, the longer they live.23 The catch is that the women in this study lived in small Italian towns, almost certainly eating healthier diets and getting more exercise than most Americans." (ed note: and having a stronger social support system.)

If you're worried about atherosclerosis, you can get a CT scan, rather than playing guess'n'gulp with drugs. Also, this site has a list of appropriate tests (scroll down). http://blog.trackyourplaque.com/

[Selah]

Just a side note--my father was an M.D. (dermatologist) who also always claimed that men routinely die of other things than prostate cancer, even if they already have had prostate cancer for a long time. He never got a prostate screening, and was in "perfect health," until he was in pain and finally went for an MRI. He was immediately diagnosed with Stage Four...prostate cancer. He died, six months after the diagnosis, at age 82 from prostate cancer, having spent his entire adult life without any illnesses greater than a cold. "G-d's great banana peel," as the song goes.

[pinkytoe]

DH has three older male relatives who were all put on statins in their early 60s. All three have now been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes even though not overweight - in fact all border on too lean. Is there a correlation?