There has been further recent research of the value of statins and whether they help more than hurt. And the case for statin use among many who use it is not very strong, as lead researchers of an innovative team from the Therapeutics Institute at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada has found.
In part, it was a fluke that an alert Vancouver machinist became a patient put on and taken off Lipitor, and whose case came to the attention of of the doctor of Wynn. James M. Wright, also a professor and head of the federal government funded Therapeutics Institute was looking at different ways to see how well statins really work.
Yes, statins can save lives. But as noted this week with the releaqse of this much needed up to date view from a different angle, it can cause more harm than good to many. I, for one, have stopped my plan to this evening have my good night statin.
They do not help those over 65, do not help women, cause loss of memory and disorientation in too many, and the results of their positive effects have been applied in a way that these scientists have changed to what may be the new science standard for worth or value of a drug: Number Needed To Treat (NNT) .
On this score, as example, Antibiotic Cocktail to eradicate ulcer-causing stomach bacteria (H.pylori) has a 1.1 ratio to reduce bacteria. That is in almost every case it cures. Next best on this scale for power in application is this plus to eradicate ulcers, which will cure one in two in a year.
Lipitor and other statin cholesterol-lowering drugs when use in people who have suffered a heart attack or display signs of heart disease have an NNF score of 16-23. To prevent an actual death the NNT is 48.
Below that, statins to those with no hear disease but who have high blood pressure, there was no clinical reduction in deaths or serious heart issues, so a precise measure from the graph in Business Week estimates a 1 in 500 NNT value.
Below that, the graph by Business Week from the Therapeutics Institute places Avandia, which controls blood sugar, and Zetia, which lowers cholesterol , have an effective likelhood under NNT of 1,000 to 1.
The need to be up to date on such findings is so important as drug costs and medical expense soar for us all. Further studies such as this very fine use of federal funds are much welcomed indeed. We so often find that after a moment of glory some wonder drug may end up causing us to wonder how he survived it.
Business Week sounds like us when it suggests that perhaps a simple switch to a Mediterranean diet, and we would add lots of celery since science has shown it lowers bad HDL rapidly, naturally. Make your celery soup with elegance and do not boil, simmer and let us see if our brains as well as our arteries clear up, clean, pure, us and the deep blue sea. Here is a celery in your bloody Mary: eat, drink, be Mary.
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