Taking cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins) offers no benefits for people over 65 who do not already have heart disease, a new intervention study finds. In fact, it looks like taking statins may even shorten their lives!
Here's an interesting comment on the study from Dr. Ross Walker:
The first line of the Hippocratic Oath states, "First, do no harm."
The excessive prescription of statins is certainly an extremely good example of where the medical profession can cause more harm than good.
posted on 28 May at 22:08
It is important for the public to recognize that most of the "scientific" research in favor of cholesterol-lowering statins is flawed and fraudulent (read Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's work). This new "study" and hyped claims are more of the propagnada of the medical racket.
The most reliable evidence has long tied statin use with memory problems, muscle disorders, liver damage, cataracts, nerve damage, arterial calcification, pancreatitis, erectile dysfunction, brain dysfunction, diabetes, and with an increased risk of cancer and higher mortality (statins only somewhat reduce the risk of non-fatal heart attacks).
The physiological mechanisms of how statins do serious damage are also well understood, such as by their impairment of oxidative cell metabolism, the increase in inflammation and cell destruction, the lowering of cholesterol and steroid hormone production, the promotion of pancreatic injury, etc. - rather thoroughly explained in this scholarly article on how statins, and a cholesterol-lowering popular diet pill advertised by Dr. Oz, promote diabetes at http://www.supplements-and-health.com/garcinia-cambogia-side-effects.html - look at Figure 7 to see how irrational it is to block the production of cholesterol!
Yet despite of the existence of that scientific knowledge, the medical business and the public health authorities keep ignoring it and, for example, continue to recommend statins to diabetics and make claims that they have a low risk profile despite that they are also significantly linked to cancer and higher mortality (just look at the propaganda put out by the Mayo clinic on statin drugs: "the risk of life-threatening side effects from statins is very low").
And because of such medical propaganda, few people are aware that the medical claims of benefits of statins are mostly based on junk studies conducted by people with vested interests. And, logically, it's mostly the corporate medical business and other people with similar vested interests tied to it (eg, mouthpieces, hacks) who promote the alleged value of these highly lucrative products.
Also, older people with HIGH cholesterol live longer than those with low cholesterol levels (see above mentioned article for numerous scientific study references confirming this).
Because the cholesterol-heart disease theory, or rather medical dogma, is wrong, the use of statins is also wrong by logical extension.
So the real truth is that statins have almost no real benefit in the very vast majority of users. They do more harm than good (read Uffe Ravnskov's "The Cholesterol Myths" and Malcolm Kendrick's "The Great Cholesterol Con"). It's one of many "scientific" scams of the mainstream medical business.