Recent Study: Statin Therapy, It May Help Your Heart—Or, Give You Diabetes?
Posted on 12. Nov, 2009 by Kerry D Friesen, M.D. in Heart Health
Ask your doctor about statin alternatives!
Heart Disease: It’s Not Just About LDL Anymore
The cholesterol lowering drugs known affectionately as “statins” are widely prescribed for patients with elevated cholesterol and/or diabetes. While they may be extremely effective at lowering LDL “bad” cholesterol, they also come with a “side-order” of side-effects—some potentially fatal.
As recently as 2008, statins were being extolled for their “pleiotropic” effects, that is, the ability to treat a myriad of disorders (Alzheimer’s, cancer, osteoporosis), in addition to the only FDA approved indication—elevated LDL cholesterol in conjunction with diet and lifestyle changes!
In fact, the prescribing information for Crestor, a leading high potency statin clearly states that,
“CRESTOR is not indicated to reduce cardiovascular morbidity and mortality”
Simply put, Crestor will not save your life or prevent the coronary artery disease that can lead to a heart attack and death. From a medico-legal standpoint, that indication is like, “having your cake and eating it too.” Something most diabetics understand is NOT possible.
New Findings
According to Dr. Swapnil Rajpathak , lead investigator of the controversial study reported in the October 2009 issue of Diabetes Care:
“Contrary to our expectation, we did not find any benefit of statins on diabetes risk. In fact, there is a suggestion that statins may be associated with increased risk — which needs to be explored further.”
To better understand the results of the trial, investigators researched data from five other randomized trials of statins. More than 57,000 study participants took part in the five trials.
Four years later, more than 2000 study participants had developed diabetes—a 13% increase over what was expected. The only significance treatment difference was the addition of statin therapy.
While the researchers argue that statin therapy ultimately has more benefit than risk, it should be noted that diabetics have elevated triglycerides and low HDL rather than an elevated LDL cholesterol.
What To Do?
Here is a partial list of commonly prescribed statins:
lovastatin (Mevacor)
pravastatin (Pravachol)
atorvastatin (Lipitor)
rosuvastatinn (Crestor)
fluvastatin (Lescol)
simvastatin (Zocor)
If you find yourself taking one of the above statins, look carefully at the changes that can be made to eliminate the need for this family of medicines. If you truly are benefiting from statin therapy, consider adding Ubiquinol 50-100 mg per day to offset the side-effects associated with longterm statin therapy.
If all else fails, you can ask your doctor about alternative therapies.
To your health!
