Government Health Agencies Complicit in Cholesterol Ruse

[Guest guest]

Government Health Agencies Complicit in Cholesterol Ruse

by Bill Sardi

http://www.doctorsaredangerous.com/articles/statin.htm

 

The revelation that statin cholesterol drugs may be of little or no

benefit, as revealed in a lengthy cover story in January 28 issue of

Business Week (BW) magazine, begs the question: how did this

misdirection go on for so long?

 

As the BW article pointed out, statin drugs " are the best-selling

medicines in history, used by more than 13 million Americans and an

additional 12 million patients around the world, producing $27.8

billion in sales in 2006. "

 

How can anyone question the benefits of such a drug, asks BW, when

they are " thought to be so essential that, according to the official

government guidelines from the National Cholesterol Education

Program (NCEP), 40 million Americans should be taking them. Some

researchers have even suggested – half-jokingly – that the

medications should be put in the water supply, like fluoride for

teeth. And it's almost impossible to avoid reminders from the

industry that the drugs are vital. A current TV and newspaper

campaign for one statin drug, as endorsed by Dr. Robert Jarvik,

artificial heart inventor, proclaims that this drug `reduces the

risk of heart attack by 36%...in patients with multiple risk factors

for heart disease'. "

 

Statin drug ruse revealed

 

But the cholesterol/statin drug ruse finally unraveled when, after

two years of foot dragging delays to release data from a large study

involving Zetia, a cholesterol-lowering drug that inhibits

cholesterol absorption from foods, and Vytorin, which is a

combination of Zetia plus Zocor, the latter a statin drug that

inhibits formation of cholesterol in the liver, revealed no health

benefits.

 

Even though this drug combo lowered circulating cholesterol numbers

better than either drug alone, it did not reduce plaque formation in

arteries and did not confer a projected reduction in mortality.

 

In fact, an earlier review published last year in the British

journal Lancet by Drs. John Abramson of Harvard Medical School and

James M. Wright MD of the University of British Columbia , could

find no evidence for a reduction in cardiac mortality in a combined

review of all published statin drug studies. [The Lancet 2007;

369:168–169]

 

Falsifying the numbers

 

The Business Week report says statin drugs benefit only 1 in 100

users, but they claim to reduce the risk of a non-mortal heart

attack by 36%. But that figure is a relative number, not a hard one.

About 3% of patients taking an inactive placebo pill will experience

a heart attack compared to 2% taking a statin drug, which produces

the so-called 30-plus percent risk reduction. But in hard numbers,

this is only a 1% reduced risk.

 

This type of misleading advertising wouldn't pass Federal Trade

Commission guidelines. But public health agencies, serving as free

publicity agents for the statin drug manufacturers, repeat the claim

to give it a ring of credibility.

 

Complicity by public health agencies

 

Articles posted at websites administered by the Food & Drug

Administration and the National Institutes of Health repeat this

misleading claim. In fact, a recent posting by the NIH claims statin

drugs reduce the risk for a sudden death heart attack by 19%, when

in hard numbers it is actually just 0.8% (reduction from 3.8 to 3.0%

over 4.4 years).

 

How did the FDA ever approve these drugs except to ignore these

facts? Why did the FDA allow pharmaceutical companies two years to

report critical data on the effectiveness of a life-saving drug?

 

Do benefits outweigh the risk for side effects?

 

For years there has been criticism that statin drugs are not totally

safe, that they produce muscle aches and mental problems. But

advocates for statin drugs have repeatedly claimed the benefits of

statin drugs far outweigh any risks, said to occur among 2–3% of

users. But the BW report cited side effects occur among 10–15% of

users, which is backed by current research. [Current Opinion

Lipidology 2007 Aug;18(4):401–8] The risks for serious side effects

far outweigh any alleged benefits.

 

Collusion by medical journals

 

Others in modern medicine are also complicit in this subterfuge. The

following is an example.

 

On April 8, 2004 the New England Journal of Medicine published an

authoritative report about the use of cholesterol-lowering drugs

among patients hospitalized for acute coronary syndrome (acute heart

attack or highly unstable chest pain/angina). The study, conducted

by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical

School in Boston , enrolled 4162 patients at 349 sites in 8

countries. [ New England Journal Medicine 350: 1495–1504, April, 8,

2004 ]

 

The study compared the use of standard-dose (40 mg) pravastatin

(Pravachol) with intensive-cholesterol lowering with high-dose (80

mg) atorvastatin (Lipitor). The chart below appears to show a slight

advantage (about 4–5% difference) in reduction of mortality for the

high-dose statin drug regimen. This slight advantage is shown as a

16% relative risk reduction in the published paper. These relative

numbers are used to magnify the effects of these types of intensive

drug regimens. Examine the chart below, as published in the New

England Journal of Medicine:

 

 

 

OK, the complicity of modern medicine in this crime is documented in

print. The New England Journal of Medicine published a correction of

the above numbers two years later ( Feb. 16, 2006 ), in an obscure

back page of the Journal. The following is a scanned image of that

correction notice.

 

 

 

Here are the corrected numbers (number at risk):

 

`

6 months

12 months

18 months

24 months

30 months

 

Standard therapy

`

`

`

`

`

 

Pravastatin:

1701

1542

1449

896

224

 

Atorvastatin:

1752

1590

1515

950

231

 

Intensive therapy

`

`

`

`

`

 

 

Intensive high-dose statin drug therapy (atorvastatin) appears to

have slightly increased the risk for death rather than reduced it.

There was no explanation as to why the initially-reported numbers

were incorrect, nor why the New England Journal of Medicine didn't

withdraw this paper, which still misleads many. Nor why doctors at

the above-mentioned medical institutions didn't seek wider exposure

for this correction.

 

Do statin drugs mimic a vitamin?

 

In 2006 Dr. Davis S. Grimes of the Blackburn Royal Infirmary in

Great Britain, ruffled a lot of feathers in the medical world when

he revealed that statin drugs appear to be synthetic versions

(called analogs) of vitamin D. [Lancet 2006 Jul 1; 368(9529):83–6]

All the alleged health benefits of statin drugs, prevention of

osteoporosis, cancer prevention, promotion of arterial health,

parallel those of vitamin D. The pharmaceutical world was quick to

deny the allegation.

 

In his report entitled " Are statin analogs of vitamin D? " Dr. Grimes

claims that the concept of statin drugs may come from vitamin D as

they appear to be molecular alterations of this vitamin. A more

recent study confirms that statin drugs modestly increase vitamin D

levels. (See chart below.)

 

Drug Status

Took drug or inactive placebo

Vitamin D level

(nanomole/Liter of blood)

 

No statin

Active

Placebo

65.9

38.4

 

On statin

Active

Placebo

74.0

50.0

 

Source: American Journal Cardiology 2007 October 15; 100(8): 1329.

 

 

Liver toxicity turned into a health benefit

 

Because these statin-drug vitamin D analogs had toxic liver side

effects, their pharmaceutical inventors appear to have turned this

drawback into a so-called advantage – that they inhibited

cholesterol production in the liver. For comparison, any herbal

product that raises liver enzyme levels would be quickly withdrawn

from the marketplace by the FDA and declared a liver toxin. But the

FDA permits liver-toxic statin drugs to be marketed and sold to

millions of Americans.

 

Common health benefits of statin drugs and vitamin D

 

If statin drugs have any redeeming quality it is that they modestly

raise vitamin D levels. How would this common biological action of

statin drugs and vitamin D address the accumulation of plaque in

arteries with advancing age?

 

You will be surprised to learn only about 3% of arterial plaque is

cholesterol and 50% is calcium. [international Journal Cardiology

1991 Nov; 33 (2):191–8] Researchers in Germany point out that a

deficiency of vitamin D induces calcification and that " almost all

atherosclerotic plaque in arteries are calcified. " [Current Opinion

Lipidology 2007 Feb; 18(1):41–6] End-stage kidney disease patients,

who experience severe arterial calcification, have mortality rates

that are 10–20 times higher than the general population. [Current

Opinion Lipidology 18:41–46: 2007] The presence of arterial

calcification is a predictor of poor 5-year survival.

 

Calcification results in stiff arteries. Cholesterol on the other

hand is soft and waxy and does not produce hardened arteries.

Vitamin D is an anti-calcifying agent. [seminars in Dialysis 2005

Jul–Aug; 18(4):307–14]

 

A vitamin D deficiency increases the risk for heart disease.

[Circulation January 7, 2008 ; Current Opinion Clinical Nutrition

Metabolism Care. 2008 Jan; 11(1):7–12] Heart attacks occur more

frequently in winter when vitamin D levels are low. [Chronobiology

International 2005; 22(6):1121–35; International Journal

Epidemiology 1990 Sep; 19(3):559–63] The use of vitamin D

supplements reduces the overall risk of mortality at least seven

times greater than statin drugs. [Archives Internal Medicine 2007

Sep 10; 167(16):1730–7]

 

Modern medicine misdirected the public and many health professionals

into thinking cholesterol, not calcium, is the chief culprit in

coronary artery disease. By lowering a meaningless number, patients

would derive a false sense of heart health, and doctors would

maintain a high level of disease to treat.

 

Cholesterol or calcium?

 

It is instructive to compare the dietary intake of cholesterol and

calcium with the coronary heart disease and stroke mortality rates

from various countries. It is obvious that dietary cholesterol has

no meaningful relationship with coronary heart disease and calcium

does.

 

Relationship of dietary cholesterol and calcium to coronary heart

disease, by country

 

`

Japan

China

Britain

USA

 

Dietary cholesterol intake milligrams/day (mean)

Males

Females

 

446

359

 

218

146

 

299

220

 

348

244

 

Dietary calcium intake milligrams/day (mean)

Males

Females

 

605

607

 

356

256

 

1013

843

 

882

699

 

Mortality rates, age-adjusted stroke/coronary heart disease per

100,000

Males

Females

 

 

57

20

 

 

54

36

 

 

267

139

 

 

202

84

 

Source: Zhou BF, et al, Nutrient intakes of middle-aged men and

women in China , Japan , United Kingdom , and United States in the

late 1990s: the INTERMAP study. Journal Human Hypertension 17: 623–

30, 2003.

 

 

Steer the public away from high-dose vitamin D

 

But something had to be done to distract the public away from taking

vitamin D pills. So a misleading claim was made that high-dose

vitamin D actually induces arterial calcifications and that

pharmaceutical companies would have to invent synthetic versions

(analogs) of vitamin D that would not result in calcification of

tissues throughout the body.

 

While vitamin D does induce calcification, it requires a human

equivalent dose of 21,000,000 international units (IU) to do this.

[Current Opinion Lipidology 2007 Feb; 18(1):41–6] A person would

have to take over 52,000 400-IU vitamin D pills to do this.

 

Health directives from various public agencies attempt to steer the

public away from so-called high doses of vitamin D. An online

National Institutes of Health guide says 2000 IU is the " upper safe

limit. "

 

But this limit is absurd. About 30 minutes of total-body sun

exposure to midday summer sun would produce about 10,000 IU of

natural vitamin D and overcalcification does not occur from solar

vitamin D production. Two people inadvertently consumed sugar cubes

over-fortified with vitamin D and their intake was 1.7 million units

per day. It took seven months before headaches and gastric side

effects forced them to see a doctor, and the symptoms subsided with

cessation of the use of the sugar cubes. [Lancet. 2002 Feb 23; 359

(9307):672]

 

It's time for the millions of Americans taking statin drugs to

confront their doctors, and inquire about substituting $3-a-day

statin drugs for a 10-cent vitamin D pill.

 

January 21, 2008

 

DISCLAIMER

 

This information is not intended as medical advice. I encourage

everyone to make their own health care decisions, with advice from

qualified professionals.