Statins - the Mainstream Media wakes up

BBC radio 4 news this morning is reporting a story featured in the Telegraph - throwing doubt on the efficacy of statin drugs.  The BBC is stating that there is little evidence that statins do anything for people who do not alread have heart problems.

Well welcome to the party guys!  The bloggers have been saying this for years and years and years.

Check out Dr Briffa for example:  Do statins save lives in essentially healthy people? (No)

or Dr Stephan Guyenet or many others - such as Peter.   I even featured somethin on this way back.

Cholesterol is healthy

Just wanted to point to a couple of recent pieces on cholesterol.

Cholesterol-reducing Drugs May Lessen Brain Function, Says Researcher

If you try to lower the cholesterol by taking medicine that is attacking the machinery of cholesterol synthesis in the liver, that medicine goes to the brain too. And then it reduces the synthesis of cholesterol which is necessary in the brain," said Shin. In his experiments, Shin tested the activity of the neurotransmitter-release machinery from brain cells without cholesterol present and measured how well the machinery functioned. He then included cholesterol in the system and again measured the protein function. Cholesterol increased protein function by five times.

Chris Masterjohn's been saying the same thing for years.

Anyway, I do not want statins!



Peter had a great post as well looking some of the dodgy science which gave rise to the whole cholesterol is bad thing.

Low Carb diet makes you happier?

Dr Briffa pointed this out (I'll have to interview him sometime!) People feel better on a low carb diet than they do on a low fat diet.

Here is the abstract:

Effects of two weight-loss diets on health-related quality of life
Purpose To compare the effects of two diets on health-related quality of life (HRQOL).
Methods Overweight volunteers (n = 119) were randomized to follow a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet (LCKD) or a low-fat diet (LFD) for 24 weeks. HRQOL was measured every 4 weeks using the Short Form-36 and analyzed using linear mixed-effects models.
Results The mean age was 45 years and mean baseline body mass index was 34 kg/m2; 76% were women. At 24 weeks, five subscales (Physical Functioning, Role-Physical, General Health, Vitality, Social Functioning) and the Physical Component Summary score improved similarly in both diet groups. Bodily Pain improved in the LFD group only, whereas the Role-Emotional and Mental Health subscales and the Mental Component Summary (MCS) score improved in the LCKD group only. In comparison with the LFD group, the LCKD group had a statistically significant greater improvement in MCS score (3.1; 95%CI 0.2–6.0; effect size = 0.44) and a borderline significant greater improvement in the Mental Health subscale (5.0; 95%CI −0.3–10.4; effect size = 0.37).
Conclusions Mental aspects of HRQOL improved more in participants following an LCKD than an LFD, possibly resulting from the LCKD’s composition, lack of explicit energy restriction, higher levels of satiety or metabolic effects.

It is not too surprising. Low fat diets have do not seem to be good for mental health. Barry Groves has an interesting story on his site.

Then there is this study - those whose serum cholesterol was below 4.27 mmol/l were six times more likely to attempt suicide than those with cholesterol above 5.77.


Low Serum Cholesterol Concentration and Risk of Suicide

Abstract

Recent reports have suggested a link between low serum total cholesterol and risk of death from suicide. We examined this association using participants in the 1970-1972 Nutrition Canada Survey. We determined the mortality experience of Nutrition Canada Survey participants older than 11 years of age at baseline through 1993 by way of record linkage to the Canadian National Mortality Database. The relation between low serum total cholesterol and mortality from suicide was assessed using a stratified analysis (N = 11,554). There were 27 deaths due to suicide. Adjusting for age and sex, we found that those in the lowest quartile of serum total cholesterol concentration (<4.27 ratio =" 6.39;" interval =" 1.27-32.1)">5.77 mmol/liter). Increased rate ratios of 2.95 and 1.94 were observed for the second and third quartiles, respectively. The effect persisted after the exclusion from the analysis of the first 5 years of follow-up and after the removal of those who were unemployed or who had been treated for depression. These data indicate that low serum total cholesterol level is associated with an increased risk of suicide.

Statins are bad....

As we have been saying already.

Dr Briffa here discusses the danger of cutting your cholesterol....

and there is also this new review of the nasty adverse effects of statins:

First comprehensive paper on statins' adverse effects released: Provides evidence for reported side effects including muscle and cognitive problems

"The risk of adverse effects goes up as age goes up, and this helps explain why," said Golomb. "This also helps explain why statins' benefits have not been found to exceed their risks in those over 70 or 75 years old, even those with heart disease." High blood pressure and diabetes are linked to higher rates of mitochondrial problems, so these conditions are also clearly linked to a higher risk of statin complications, according to Golomb and co-author Marcella A. Evans, of UC San Diego and UC Irvine Schools of Medicine.

More refutations of that statin study and a plea for you to COMPLAIN!

A couple more refutations of that statins study....

From Junkfood Science: When the news sounds too good… statin, the new wonder drug

From Eugene: JUPITER IS A JOKE

From Dr Eades: Truth versus hype in the JUPITER study


If you are as annoyed as I was about the biased news coverage of this thing, do what did: complain to the BBC. Their coverage on radio, TV and their news website was free advertising for Astra Zenica and lazy journalism which did not critically examine the facts, but just rehashed the press release. Complain via the BBC Complaints

Statins - apparently they are now an essential nutrient

I woke up to this on the radio this morning....

Statin use 'may benefit healthy'

The study of 17,800 men and women with normal cholesterol levels found a new statin drug cut deaths from heart attacks and strokes. Professor Peter Sever, the professor of pharmacology at Imperial College, explains what the study found.

As Peter comments it was a free advert for the drug companies.

It needs rebuttal. Peter and Dr Briffa do a good job.

Cholesterol, heart attacks and JUPITER

Statins reduce cardiovascular disease in health people, and why this study is a poke in the eye for the cholesterol hypothesis

Also from Mark Sisson - Statin Insanity

once more....keep off the statins.

This week there was a spate of stories about how low levels of (good?) cholesterol are linked to memory loss and the risk of dementia (also here and here)

Not particularly new stuff - Barry Groves has linked low cholesterol to Alzheimer's - and Chris Masterjohn has explained how memory is directly reliant on cholesterol.

Anyway, you know I am not a fan of the cholesterol hypothesis.

Then I saw this press release:

Statins have unexpected effect on pool of powerful brain cells

Now you might think that there is a real positive benefit to statins that has been identifed.....so you read on:

Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins have a profound effect on an elite group of cells important to brain health as we age, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found. The new findings shed light on a long-debated potential role for statins in the area of dementia.

Still sounds good doesn't it...so you read on....

The new findings come at a time of increasing awareness among neurologists and cardiologists of the possible effects of statins on the brain. Several studies have set out to show that statins provide some protection against dementia, but the evidence has been inconclusive at best. Meanwhile, there is some debate among physicians about whether statins might actually boost the risk of dementia. The new research published in the July issue of the journal Glia by Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., and first author Fraser Sim, Ph.D., provides direct evidence for an effect of statins on brain cells.

"There has been a great deal of discussion about a link between statins and dementia, but evidence either way has been scant," said Goldman, a neurologist who led the team. "This new data provides a basis for further exploration.

"These findings were made through experiments done in cell culture using human brain cells and exposing them to doses of statins used widely in patients. But this research was not done in people. There are a great number of questions that need to be explored further before anyone considers changing the way statins are used," Goldman added.

Now you may not be so sure....why would we change the way we use statins? Read on and you find that actually they have found a big problem!

"Our results suggest the need for awareness of the possible toxicities accruing to long-term statin use, and identify one such potential toxicity, the premature differentiation and attendant long-term depletion of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells of the adult brain," conclude the authors in their Glia paper.

They are saying that statins can mess up your brain in a really complex way!!!!

Read the whole thing. It is amazing how the real story - statins are potentially a big problem - is hidden away at the end.