Heart Disease: Statins With Your Burger and Chips?

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According to researchers at Imperial College London, if fast food outlets offered cholesterol-lowering statins, then these drugs would offset the unhealthy effects of knocking back a cheeseburger and milkshake...

Well in that case, why not order extra large fries and chicken nuggets too!

No, come-on, if we’re going to be ridiculous, let’s go completely crazy!

You have to agree, of all the bad suggestions made by so- called health ‘experts’, having a statin with your burger and chips, must be the worst one yet...

Reducing the risk of heart attack

The suggestion, to make ‘risk-reducing supplements’ (i.e. side-effect ridden statins) available just as easily as unhealthy fast food, is made in a paper by Dr Darrel Francis, a cardiologist at Imperial's National Heart and Lung Institute... So, it’s not just anybody that’s babbled this kind of nonsense but a leading heart doctor... Worse still, the paper was published in the American Journal of Cardiology!

Dr. Francis does add that statins do not cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries and that it’s better to avoid fatty food altogether.

While he looks looks pretty much on track with that part of his logic, he then completely falls off the wagon with this bit of so-called reasoning: “But in terms of your likelihood of having a heart attack, taking a statin can reduce your risk to more or less the same degree as a fast food meal increases it... It would cost less then 5p per customer - not much different to a sachet of ketchup...”

So, taking one statin with your burger will counteract the heart attack risk associated with a fast food meal?

Even at 5p per customer, the suggestion is still ridiculous!

Encouraging healthy lifestyles not pill-popping

What amazes me more is that a prestigious journal like the American Journal of Cardiology actually published such tripe!

What should be encouraged and advocated are healthy lifestyle messages, not pill popping!

Worse still, research like this will make even more people complacent about eating fatty and high calorie foods... at a time when we’re in the grip of an obesity epidemic...

What good will that do?

Especially when you’d then be exposing all these people to statins’ well-documented adverse effects like increasing the risk of moderate or serious liver dysfunction, acute renal failure, moderate or serious myopathy, and cataract... and that is to mention only a few...

At least there’s one spark in the dark, in the form of Dr. John Abramson from Harvard Medical School, in the US, who has co-written several critical reports on the rise of statin use, including one published in the June issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

He says that the public wants an easy way to prevent heart disease, doctors want to reduce their patients' risk of heart disease and drug companies want to maximize the number of people taking their pills to boost their sales and profits.

Spot on Dr. Abramson, and with the 'pill for every ill' attitude that's already much too common, Big Pharma must be racking in the profits thick and fast...

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Statins not as effective as they are cracked-up to be

The real issue in the latest round of this debate is whether statins prevent, safely and at a reasonable cost, the development of cardiovascular disease in people who are still healthy but are considered to be at high risk of a heart attack or stroke.

The latest new statin study from the University of Cambridge, a meta-analysis involving 65,229 participants, reviewed 11 large statin trials and concluded there is no evidence for the benefit of statin therapy in preventing death amongst those at high risk of cardiovascular disease who don’t actually have a history of the disease.

I can see a whole lot of ‘statin condiments’ going stale at my local burger joint...

That’s not all. This new study is the latest of several negative reports about cholesterol-lowering drug trials.

Previously I told you about the cloud of doubt cast over the findings of a 2006 study, called JUPITER. The findings of JUPITER were so influential that they single handedly expanded the use of statins to healthy people with elevated blood levels of C-reactive protein - a measure of inflammation and a heart disease risk factor.

However, in July this year, it came to light that ethical, clinical and financial conflicts of interest in the execution of the JUPITER study made the trial "flawed" and raised "troubling questions concerning the role of commercial sponsors."... So all those people using statins because they have elevated levels of C-reactive protein, may be popping those pills for no reason at all...

Read more about this controversy by following the link below.

Statin Controversy: Results of Major Statin Trial are Biased and Flawed

Sorry Big Pharma but adding statins to our milkshakes and our mayonnaise is not the answer here. Instead, we need to focus on practical things to drive down the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, like exercising regularly, not smoking, drinking in moderation and eating a healthy Mediterranean-style diet.

Heart Disease - Related Reading:

Cholesterol – Your Doctor’s Advice Could be Damaging Your Health...

Crestor Statin Controversy: Results of Major Statin Trial are Biased and Flawed

Studies Show Meditation Can Benefit Your Heart

HOT TOPICS:

Lower Your Cholesterol And Protect Your Heart Without Statin Drugs

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Food and Prescription Medicine: A Potentially Dangerous Cocktail

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Sources:

‘Statins with your burger?' Doctors want heart pills on menu’, published online 12.08.10, by guardian.co.uk

Statins may not be as helpful for those without heart disease, by Steven Reinberg, published online, kmeg14.com

‘Effectiveness of statins called into question’ published online 09.08.10, latimes.com

‘Report Examines Whether Statins Prevent Death in High-Risk Individuals Without Heart Disease’ published online 04.07.10, sciencedaily.com