Talk about health

"... people over 40 will be offered statins to help their hearts." WHAT??? Have I heard correctly? I caught the end of that sentence as I turned on the news this morning. I couldn't believe it, so I waited around until the headlines came on again about half an hour later. Sure enough, there it was again. This time I caught the whole piece and scribbled down the relevant sentence. Here it is: -

One in two men and one in three women over the age of forty in Scotland will be offered statins to help their heart.

Help their heart what? I wondered. I'm sure you have heard that Scottish people lead the world in suffering from heart disease, so I can see where they are coming from. But, giving a large proportion of Scots some expensive drug for the rest of their natural lives is not the answer. It's not even one of the answers.

This seems like yet another story dreamed up by the multi-national drug industry marketing department to increase their hold on power and money. Before you think I'm just having one of my turns, you might like to find out just what these statin drugs can do.

Sure, they lower your cholesterol. In some cases they just about drain all the colesterol out of your body. For a start, there is a great deal of research to show that we all need reasonable amounts of cholesterol just to function normally, so lowering it to artificially minimal levels is not what anyone wants. Except the drug companies that is!

They want as many people as possible to take them, not for any altruisitc health reasons but to help maintain and increase their profit levels. Just because they have the means to lower cholesterol to almost zero, doesn't mean it is a good or healthy thing.

Remember, too, that cholesterol does not mean heart attack. More than half the people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol. There are several factors that lead to heart disease and cholesterol is one indicator, but by no means is it the only one or indeed the major one.

Even if you think mass statin therapy is a good and reasonable thing to do, consider the side effects. The statins have quite a long and interesting list of side effects, some of which are pretty devastating. The most well known of them is rhabdomyolysis a fancy name for muscle pain and wasting followed by kidney disease.

Then there's co-enzyme Q-10, an essential chemical for your heart. Statins cause it to be lowered thus leaving the heart open to failure.

And, there is the problem of episodes of memory loss, and possible triggers for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, dizziness, depression, tingling, etc, etc...

These side effects cause many people to stop taking statins after a year or so. Where does that leave the lifetime's treatment? I know at least one doctor who stopped his statins just a few months after having had a heart attack. Is he wrong or foolish, or does he know more that he is saying?

This shows that the media are always open to the drug industry hype without bothering to ask any questions or get other opinions to give some balance.

There may well be a place for statins in certain cases. Research show this to be true. But there is no evidence that mass medication on the scale mentioned this morning will do anything other than increase the drug industry profit margins. It will certainly not do much good for the Scots or any other large group of people.

If you want to get your cholesterol down a bit, there are loads of things you can do before you reach for the statin. Diet and exercise for a start, followed by a range of complementary and alternative therapies. To me, statin therpay is vey near the last avenue to go down, not the first.

I have a booklet that will take you through the whole story. it's called "All about cholesterol" and you can get it at http://www.healthexplored.co.uk/eOrder/shop.php for instant download. It tells you the good and bad of statins plus the alternative ways of lowering cholesterol.

Thanks for reading my latest rant.

Wishing you the very best of health.