Lipitor and Women: Do Statins Stop Womens Heart Disease?

Here's what you need to know about side effects from Lipitor Zocor, Simvastatin side effects -- how statins work -- a Lipitor dose for women and stopping womens heart disease symptoms!

Why might you want to find new statin alternatives?

Not just because of statins and muscle pain, or statins memory loss side effects, and even higher diabetes rates for both men and women who take statins...

• But statins may in fact NOT even protect women!

• Here's some compelling health news from scientists studying womens heart disease:

Women and healthy men don't really benefit from statins such as Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor, Simvastatin, Pravachol, and Lescol according to researchers.

Yes, while statin drugs have been shown to decrease heart attacks FOR MEN DIAGNOSED WITH HEART DISEASE, it is a different story for healthy men, Lipitor and women, those who are overweight, and the elderly, say scientists.

• In fact, if you are a WOMAN, a HEALTHY MAN, or are OVER the AGE of 70, the effectiveness of statins -- cholesterol lowering drugs -- has NOT been validated.

• YES, your cholesterol may go down, but you may still NOT LIVE ANY LONGER.

• YES, researchers do agree that statins can lower your high cholesterol, BUT...

...for most people, there is LITTLE EVIDENCE, IF ANY, that taking statins will make a meaningful difference in HOW LONG YOU LIVE says Dr. Beatrice Golomb, a cardiologist at UC San Diego.

“You may have helped the heart," says Dr. Golomb, “but you have not helped the patient. You have to look at the impact on the patient overall.”

Your doctor is NOT likely to agree to alternatives to statins, because researchers found that:

• Doctors deny statin side effects e.g. muscle pain and statins

• Natural Heart Formula with Statin Alternatives

• Heart Disease Cure for YOUR Heart Disease Symptom?

• Best LOW Cholesterol Diet: Cholesterol BUSTING Foods?

• How Womens Heart Disease is Different

Women Don't Benefit from Statins, Lipitor?

The short answer is, middle-aged men.

Researchers have been narrowing down the benefits of lowering cholesterol by taking statins (Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor, Crestor, Pravachol, and Lescol), and are finding that those who can benefit are:

• Men who have been diagnosed with heart disease who are under the age of 70.

Those who will NOT benefit are:

1) healthy men

2) women with or without heart disease

3) people who are over the age of 70

So, for most people: for healthy men, for women and for those over the age of 70, there is little evidence that taking statins will make a meaningful difference in how long they live.

(B. Golomb, Journal of Am. College of Cardiology)

Dr. Judith Walsh, a UCSF epidemiologist, looked at 20 major statin studies and found that only nine directly included data about women.

After reviewing data from 11 studies -- investigators from two other studies provided supplemental data about women -- she and her colleagues concluded that:

• Statins such as Lipitor did NOT reduce deaths or heart attacks among women with no prior history of heart disease.

• Womens Heart Disease: Which Heart Attack Symptoms are Different?

Higher Diabetes: Women & Statins, Lipitor

• But researchers are showing that women who used statins were 50% MORE LIKELY TO GET DIABETES than women who were NOT taking statins.

• That included the typical list of statin drugs, e.g. Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor, Simvastatin, Pravachol, and Lescol.

Studies have also shown that men have a 10 to 12% increase in diabetes for those who use statins after controlling for other risk factors.

• Why? How do statins work? Researchers thought that the effect of statins on the muscles and liver may stimulate sugar production, or discourage people to exercise.

Publication: Annals of Internal Medicine, researcher Yunsheng Ma of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

Take Lipitor for the Rest of Your Life?

In one large clinical trial, published in the British medical journal the Lancet in 2002, researchers found statins lowered the incidence of cardiac "events," including heart attacks, among 70 to 82 year-olds with heart disease or known risk factors.

• But the study found no effect on LONGEVITY, and according to some critics, it turned up an ominous INCREASE in CANCER diagnosis among those on statins such as Lipitor.

• Typically, statins (Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor, Pravachol, and Lescolare) are recommended for MEN and WOMEN, YOUNG and OLD, but they've been shown to extend life in ONLY IN ONE GROUP -- middle aged men -- says Dr. Golomb.

• Middle-aged men at high risk for heart disease benefit from statins, according to Dr. Beatrice Golomb, a cardiologist at UC San Diego:

"For all other groups, the existing evidence says that your life will NOT be extended."

Lipitor Dose Harmful for Women?

While women and men are being prescribed the same doses by their doctors, research is showing this not as effective for womens heart disease:

• The benefit from these widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs is less pronounced in women than in men, even though they are prescribed similar doses, according to a study conducted at McGill University. (L. Pilote, Canadian Medical Association Journal)

What is the explanation? Dr. Wright, an internist and clinical pharmacologist who specializes in hypertension:

• “The only plausible explanation (for the difference seen between men and women on statins) is that women are being harmed by the drugs and it's leading to deaths that are presently unrecognized to be caused by the statins."

• "This is pretty good proof of it," Wright says of the McGill study, “because the dose and the concentration and the effect on cholesterol are all expected to be greater in women than in men – but instead we are seeing a lesser reduction in death."

Dr. Jim Wright, who is the medical director of the Therapeutics Initiative at the University of British Columbia, says that this study shows that the benefits of statins are exaggerated, and that this supports what's been known from previous studies.

Dr. Wright certainly questions the suggestion that women may need a higher Lipitor dose than men.

• Because women's weights on average are lower than men's, a standard dose would actually provide a higher concentration of drug in women than in men.

• Similarly, Lipitor, Zocor and Simvastatin side effects have been underestimated for womens heart disease!

Muscle pain and statins, as well as statin memory loss is often blamed on womens age, and not seen as statin side effects, or the wrong Lipitor dose for women.

Why Statin Alternatives for Heart Disease?

• In spite of taking costly heart medications, obese people, for example, still have higher rates of high blood pressure (up to more than twice as high), abnormal blood fats (2 or 3 times higher), AND diabetes.

Dr. Gregory L. Burke found that obese adults also had more silent vascular disease (blood vessel disease that causes no symptoms); they had more atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and thicker heart walls.

• Even after taking into account risk factors like high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels – and even though these people were taking costly medications to lower their blood pressure, their cholesterol and diabetes!

(Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or "MESA")

• "Our findings support the imperative to redouble our efforts to assist in increasing healthy behaviors and to remove...barriers to maintaining a healthy weight," Burke and colleagues conclude.

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Statins: More Strokes & Stroke Symptoms?

• The drugs increase the risk of a SECOND stroke in these patients.

• This was especially true of people who had strokes in one of their brain's four lobes, which have a greater chance of recurrence than strokes that occur deep in the brain.

• People who have a stroke in one of their lobes have a 22 percent risk of a second stroke when they take statins, compared with a 14 percent risk among those NOT taking a statin.

The researchers said it is not clear how statins increase the BLEEDING RISK in these patients -- a stoke warning sign.

• It is possible that having more cholesterol in the brain is protective, or it may be that statins affect clotting factors in the blood that increase the risk of a brain hemorrhage in these patients. (Archives of Neurology January 10, 2011)

• What are Mini Stroke Warning Signs?

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Lipitor, Simvastatin Side Effects for Women

• Statin drugs e.g. Lipitor and Zocor, simvastatin side effects, deplete the body of an important enzyme called CoQ10, eventually causing low energy, muscle wasting and heart failure.

Because the heart is a muscle, this "side effect" weakens the heart of both men and women -- but this weakness has been mistakenly attributed to "old age," and can be prevented.

• The risk of dying after a stroke or a heart attack is now higher for women than for men, according to new research.

Women are less likely to get proper medical care, and are less likely to be treated by a specialist or to receive certain treatments e.g. catheterization.

• Doctors still tend to prescribe the same heart medications for women as for men without knowing that statins are not as effective for women, say researchers.

Biological differences make women respond differently to medication, which should be taken into account when considering a Lipitor dose or other statins such as Zocor, Simvastatin, Mevacor, Pravachol and Lescol.

• Lipitor Side Effects: Doctors Deny Statin Side Effects

LOW Cholesterol makes you "Stupid?"

One negative impact of lowering cholesterol is on the brain, so as to "make you stupid."

• Why? Having higher cholesterol is needed by the brain.

• Researchers Penelope Elias and Merrill Elias from Boston University found a link between naturally occurring high cholesterol and modestly better mental function in areas such as:

- visual organization

- memory

- attention

- concentration.

(Based on 18 years of data collected by the Framingham Heart Study, journal Psychosomatic Medicine)

LOWER cholesterol has also been directly linked to a HIGHER incidence of STROKES:

• LOW Cholesterol, Irregular Heart Beat , strokes & AFIB?

Stopping Womens Heart Disease Now

Here's some exciting natural statin alternatives:

• Risk of heart disease was less for women who regularly used MULTIPLE VITAMIN vitamins, the major source of FOLATE and Vitamin B6, and after excluding multiple vitamin users, among those with higher intakes of folate and vitamin B6 in their food. (Framington Heart Study)

• A diet rich in FRUITS and VEGETABLES with the addition of supplements like a cherry concentrate. Why?

"Data from whole tart cherries join other findings that suggest a correlation between anthocyanin intake and reductions in cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors," say researchers from Washington DC.

Adding tart cherry concentrate to the diet may lower cholesterol, lead to less fat storage and improve antioxidant defences, based on a rat study from the US with implications for metabolic syndrome.

(E.M. Seymour, S. Bolling et al. Experimental Biology 2007)

• Using a proven medical potein will help keep the fats in your blood SAFE -- and not go "rancid" -- and not cause problems, so that people who use it report lower cholesterol and reduced HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE.

Another approach?

You will want to try Dr. Harry Elwardt's formula with many statin alternatives:

• Heart Disease Cure for YOUR Heart Disease Symptom?

Ask Us for Statin Alternatives:

Womens Heart Disease Links:

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• Are Natural Blood Thinners as good as Blood Thinner Medication?

• Does High Blood Pressure Make You Fat?

• New Antioxidants Protective for Heart Disease?

• Heart Disease Cure for YOUR Heart Disease Symptom? Hope you've found these health news posts of Lipitor dose and women and statin alternatives helpful.

The problem?

You may have heard of the Lipitor memory thief and statins memory loss, but that is not all.

• Not only are statins and muscle pain linked, as well as statins and memory loss, but even worse -- they may give you a false sense of protection against womens heart disease.

You might ask your doctor, "how do statins work?" Unfortunately doctors don't keep up with scientific research, so the'll not likely recommend natural statin alternatives. Their protocol has them stick to their statin drug list, so it is up to you.

• Fortunately statin alternatives are safe to use alongside your Lipitor Zocor while your doctor safely reduces your Lipitor dose.

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We've posted the research. Feel free to explore our site for alternatives to statins, so you can choose the best for you!

Statin alternatives -- cholesterol busting foods -- and supplements scientifically shown to be alternatives to statins, can be SAFELY taken with your meds.

• Let us know, and we'll post your successes at our Health News Forum for healthy living!

Lipitor Dose and Women? Statin Alternatives, Lipitor Astorvastatin Women & Womens Heart Disease: Statins, Lipitor, Zocor don’t Protect Women? Statin side effects, Lipitor Side Effects, Womens Heart Attack Symptoms

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