'millions more should take statins'

Millions more people should be put on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs to protect them against heart attacks and strokes, according to draft guidelines for the NHS in England.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) says the scope for offering this treatment should be widened to save more lives.

Death rates have been decreasing in recent years, but cardiovascular disease remains the leading UK killer.

It claims about 180,000 lives a year.

Currently, doctors are meant to offer statin tablets to the estimated seven million people who have a 20% chance of developing cardiovascular disease over 10 years, based on risk factors such as their age, sex, whether they smoke and what they weigh.

NICE is now suggesting that people with as low as a one in 10 or 10% risk should be offered statins.

www.bbc.co.uk...


So, Big Pharma are beefing up the UK market...aided and abetted by the UK govt, naturally, in the form of NICE.

More people will get harangued by their GP into taking unnecessary medicine with no proven track record for the asymptomatic, but with a rock-solid track record for making billion$ for Big Pharma.

Already you can't talk to your GP about your problems because he's too busy pushing the crap the govt have ordered him to push on you; this will just crank up the pressure further still.

I'm sorry...when did we stop being a democracy and become a totalitarian state?

reply to post by CJCrawley


I was put on them recently but I had to stop taking them because they very badly affected my memory. Its bad normally now but with statins it was near invisible in its ability to recall stuff that should have been there easily.

reply to post by Shiloh7


They effect everyone differently, when I worked in an old dears home all of them were on Statins some had joint pain due to them some other things but one thing it did for all of them was to extend their life....so you have to weigh up the pros and cons yourself, educate yourself on what they do and If you can take anything to counteract the side effects.

reply to post by boymonkey74


Thought i read a report some time ago that statins were almost as bad for the body as steroids are?

Weren't there serious side effects associated with these things that was just highlighted? (probably buried now they are on the big push though)

reply to post by MysterX


Until we have personalised medicine (soon I hope) any drug can effect someone with side effects and what will work for one person will not work for another.
I can only speak about statins from my personal view and my view was that my old dears were better off taking them because they do extend peoples lives.
My old hippy pal down the road has been taking them for 6 months and his side effect is sore legs in the morning but his health overall has been improved by them.
BTW did anyone see the Pain Pus and Poison Documentary on the BBC? It expalins much about "big pharma (The latest bogey man)" it just explains things in there.
www.bbc.co.uk...

If told I have to take them I would research and educate myself and like I said weigh up the good/bad sides of it.

in a recent study of 4 million peeps statins showed ZERO benefit
and with all the liabilities
gaia-health.com...

Millions more told to take statins
Millions more Britons may be told to take statins to lower their chance of strokes and heart attacks, after research that caused a radical change in American healthcare guidance

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Millions taking statins 'needlessly'
Up to 3 million people are taking statins needlessly, doctors warn today in a comprehensive study that suggests they are ineffective in many cases and could be doing more harm than good.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

maybe healthcare should go easy on the crack too...pretty sure it isn't helping

High cholesterol isn't a risk factor. The science is far outdated yet the protocol for medding up still remains. What matters is the particle size of circulating cholesterols and arterial wall health.

Preventative care should remain within the realm of diet and exercise. My father was overweight and on high blood pressure meds by mid 30s. I'm a healthy weight/absi with under 120/80 blood pressure and resting heart rate in the low 50s at age 31.

I don't need checkups, blood work, or any dx/rx. All that's needed is to eat healthy and sweat regularly.

I agree that more people need to take statins, we need to cut the population of the world. I am not going to be one of them though. I'll eat celery instead. Don't be eating too much celery if you have low blood pressure or a slow heart rate though. My daughter and her friend found out the hard way that you don't make a lot of celery juice in a juicer and drink it for days. It's strong medicine

boymonkey74
reply to post by Shiloh7

 

They effect everyone differently, when I worked in an old dears home all of them were on Statins some had joint pain due to them some other things but one thing it did for all of them was to extend their life....so you have to weigh up the pros and cons yourself, educate yourself on what they do and If you can take anything to counteract the side effects.

They wanted to keep their customers living. It also is beneficial if their joints are sore so they can't run away. I suppose they won't remember the life they used to have before they came to the old dears home so they will be happier locked up there. This is what we refer to as humane, dying with a mind full of memories is not good, you need to be alive and like an old dog to be humane.

I should write a will saying if the kids stick me into a retirement home or nursing home, they lose everything I work for. Oh that is right, if they do stick me there I will be giving it to the nursing home, therapists, and doctors anyway, I don't have to do more than warn them of what will be in their future. I don't have much, but I guess I don't want the medical industry to have it, I want my children and grandchildren to have it. I know, I am being inhumane now....I gotta go feed all the cats a treat now.

reply to post by rickymouse

maybe the one percenters who profit off the misery of statins should be taking them
and maybe some vaccines too

boymonkey74
reply to post by Shiloh7

 

They effect everyone differently, when I worked in an old dears home all of them were on Statins some had joint pain due to them some other things but one thing it did for all of them was to extend their life....so you have to weigh up the pros and cons yourself, educate yourself on what they do and If you can take anything to counteract the side effects.

If I were in an 'old dear's' home, I would make the most of every day, but I would not want to 'extend' my life(?) by one second.

Funny what a little controlled diet and exercise will solve...compared to a pill.

There's no money to be made if people eat right and become active. The side effects of both exercise and healthy foods is happiness, self confidence, a beaming glow, healthy hair, new found strength, natural anti-depressant, healthy body, healthy skin, joint relief and stress relief, good moods, new friends, longer lifespan, great blood flow, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, increased brain activity, heightened awareness, increased libido....etc.

Who would want all that crap?
Just give them a pill...it's easier than exercise.

rickymouse

boymonkey74
reply to post by Shiloh7

 

They effect everyone differently, when I worked in an old dears home all of them were on Statins some had joint pain due to them some other things but one thing it did for all of them was to extend their life....so you have to weigh up the pros and cons yourself, educate yourself on what they do and If you can take anything to counteract the side effects.

They wanted to keep their customers living. It also is beneficial if their joints are sore so they can't run away. I suppose they won't remember the life they used to have before they came to the old dears home so they will be happier locked up there. This is what we refer to as humane, dying with a mind full of memories is not good, you need to be alive and like an old dog to be humane.

I should write a will saying if the kids stick me into a retirement home or nursing home, they lose everything I work for. Oh that is right, if they do stick me there I will be giving it to the nursing home, therapists, and doctors anyway, I don't have to do more than warn them of what will be in their future. I don't have much, but I guess I don't want the medical industry to have it, I want my children and grandchildren to have it. I know, I am being inhumane now....I gotta go feed all the cats a treat now.

My mother worked in nursing homes her entire carrier as an RN.

Her famous words...."If you ever put me in one of these places I will get ahold of a gun some how and shoot you".

reply to post by boymonkey74

one thing it did for all of them was to extend their life

You can't possibly know that.

CJCrawley
reply to post by boymonkey74

 

one thing it did for all of them was to extend their life

You can't possibly know that.

That is true, how would we really know that they extend a normal person's life. I am skeptical of anything that makes that claim. If there were a group of people that had taken statins for twenty years in a controlled study, meaning that their counterpart on the opposing side of the equation had genetic similarities and also the same diet, I could consider this as real. It is a sales pitch. A scam. It could be possible that it could extend some people's life but on the backside, it could make some people die more quickly.

reply to post by rickymouse


The fact is modern medicines have extended our lives the proof is just looking at the amount of old folk around.

reply to post by Shiloh7


I had the same reaction to taking Statins. Almost lost my job over my inability to recall what I did the day before!
I've been off them for about 3 months now and am slowly regaining my long term memory.

Statins are such an unbelievable racket. Not only do they not work on women, studies haven't actually showed that cholesterol is bad for you and causes heart disease.

5 years ago I had a cholesterol check and it was 6.2. The Dr put me on statins. I have told the story previously on ats of the pain and misery I had until I heard by chance the side effects. I stopped taking them and over the last 4 years he has tried me on different doses promising that it wont happen again. it did within 2 weeks of taking them.

6 months ago I had another blood test and this time my reading was 10.5. the dr insisted that I must take them. instead I got a referral to a cardiac surgeon who my aunty works for. he fully understood what I was saying the statin did to me as his father also had the same problem with them. he suggested we do every test possible to see the health of my heart. I had a stress test, ultrasound etc and passed all with flying colours. he then suggested one final test that is a CT Angiography. he said it would measure the actual build up of plaque in the heart. well.....turns out I am bloody perfect. despite having a cholesterol reading of 10.5 and being a smoker I have 0 build up. absolutely none whatsoever that puts me in a very small percentage of the population. the specialist said I don't need to see you for 10 years and we will do another ct then.

when I saw my gp with the results he still wanted to try a different statin. my appointment ended with me asking the dr what his kickback was. as I work in the health field I ran it past another top cardiac specialist my results and he told me you are perfect...stop worrying.

the only advice he said he would suggest is try taking a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in water a couple of times a day. said this would cut my cholesterol in half and the only reason he suggests this as it good for you liver. high cholesterol has a bad effect on the liver.

I am now day 3 with the apple cider vinegar and in 6 weeks have a blood test to see if it has reduced the cholesterol. I will post the results.

reply to post by boymonkey74


I do not believe that medicines can be given the credit for that. More babies do survive now than before, the fact that many young children survive now is used to evaluate life expectancy. Also, work conditions are better than even thirty years ago. The jobs are safer. Add to that the increase in the safety of the foods, there was still a lot of food poisoning around when I was young. Although food poisoning does not kill most people, it does kill some.

Take TB. The reason that it is not an epidemic now is because they add a certain chemical to foods and we are taught to eat some foods that contain these benzoates. I'm sure there are some negative effects to this chemistry but it did help to lower the number of people getting the disease.

The people who are old and mentally clear that I know eat good food, they don't eat much of the highly processed crap. They say the life expectancy is 80 now, but most people are dead of something or other by eighty, so how can the life expectancy be eighty. They are twisting the numbers. Maybe there are a lot of people, more than I realize, living in nursing homes, all crippled up. I have seen the people in those places, most aren't enjoying life.

So the biggest reason we live longer is not just medicines, it is because of changes in a lot of things. Side effects of Medicines kill a lot of people in a year in this country. If we started to eat real food again I feel we wouldn't need doctors that much. Twenty three percent of the countries GNP is in the medical field...in other words, over one fifth of all the money in this country is tied somehow to medicine. We can't afford that, that is like saying that a quarter of every dollar you make goes to the medical field. My wife's insurance costs 35 percent of what she makes in wages working full time.

Fix the problem, don't just throw money at the problem.