High Cholesterol Drugs e.g. Lipitor Don’t Protect Healthy Men, Women, the Elderly or Obese from Heart Disease

Women and healthy men may not want to depend on cholesterol lowering drugs such as Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor, Pravachol, and Lescol to protect them from heart disease, a heart attack or from death, say researchers.

Yes, statin drugs such as Lipitor have been shown to decrease heart attacks for men diagnosed with heart disease, say scientists, but if you are a woman, a healthy man, or are over the age of 70, the effectiveness of cholesterol lowering drugs has not been validated.

Yes, your cholesterol may go down, but you may still not live any longer.

• Researchers 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.”

• One negative impact of lowering cholesterol is on the brain, so as to "make you stupid." Why? Having higher cholesterol may be good for your 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)

Who Can Benefit from Taking Statins e.g. Lipitor?

Researchers have been narrowing down the benefits of lowering cholesterol by taking statins (Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor, 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: 1) healthy men, 2) women with or without heart disease, and 3) people who are over the age of 70.

For the majority of 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.

Likewise, many believe that the evidence is mixed when it comes to the elderly.

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.

Although statins are recommended for both men and women, young and old, they've been shown to extend life in only 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."

Statins, e.g. Lipitor, High Cholesterol & Women’s Health

• 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 attributed to 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 dose than their male counterparts. 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.

Why Not Depend on Statins e.g. Lipitor to Avoid Heart Disease?

In spite of taking costly heart medications, obese people still have higher rates of high blood pressure (up to more than twice as high), abnormal lipids (two- to three-fold 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 adjusting for "traditional" risk factors like high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels – even though they were on costly medications to lower blood pressure and lipid levels 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.

Avoiding Lipitor Side Effects

• Statin drugs e.g. Lipitor and Zocor deplete the body of an important anti-oxidant (CQ10), 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 taking statins such as Lipitor, Zocor, Mevacor, Pravachol and Lescol.

Doctors Deny Side Effects of Cholesterol Lowering Drugs

Avoiding Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)

• Risk of CHD was reduced among women who regularly used multiple vitamins (RR=0.76; 95% CI, 0.65-0.90), the major source of folate and vitamin B6, and after excluding multiple vitamin users, among those with higher dietary intakes of folate and vitamin B6. (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)

• Keeping your glutathione (GSH)levels high has also been found to be better at protecting against heart attacks than having low levels of cholesterol. See: Better Predictor than Cholesterol

Recommendations for Longevity Supplements:

Links for Naturally Avoiding a Heart Attack & Heart Disease

* How Nutrition Helps Heart Health Compared to Meds * Avoiding Lipitor: Lowering Cholesterol Without Meds * Eat More Eggs to Lower Your High Cholesterol? * Heart Surgery Nutrition: New Discoveries *

Statins for High Colesterol e.g. Lipitor, Mevacor, Zocor, Pravachol & Lescol May Not Protect Women the Elderly or the Obese from Death from Heart Disease, Heart Attack & Lipitor Side Effects

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