Statins are the most profitable medications produced by the Big Pharma Cartel. A report from the National Center for Health Statistics claims that 50% of men age 65-74, and nearly 40% of women over the age of 75 take a statin medication. A 2011 study found over 32 million Americans were taking a statin drug.
If that many people are prescribed a drug, one would assume that the drug is effective at treating or preventing something.
How effective are statin medications? Not very. This class of medications fails nearly 99% of those who take them. I have written about the failure of statins in my book, The Statin Disaster.
Cardiologists order coronary artery calcium scores to assess how much calcium is deposited in the coronary arteries. This test is done with a computerized tomography (CT) scan. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “Coronary calcium scores are the most sensitive approaches to detecting coronary calcification from atherosclerosis before symptoms develop.”(1) In other words, the higher the coronary artery calcium score, the more risk there is for having a heart attack.
An article in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2) investigated whether the use of stains influences the progression of coronary artery calcification during five years of follow-up in subjects who took a statin medication and compared them to subjects who did not take a statin drug.
The scientists reported that subjects who took statins for five years, when compared to those that took a placebo, were found to have a 2-fold increase in coronary artery calcification progression.
Comment: Yes, you read that last sentence correctly: Statins worsened the calcification of the coronary arteries. But, aren’t statins prescribed to lower one’s risk to suffering a heart attack? If you think you are in Alice in Wonderland, where down is up and up is down, you are not alone. I am right next to you!
Folks, statin drugs are a colossal failure. At their best, they work to lower the risk of a heart attack in approximately 1% who take them. There simply is no justification for the mass prescribing of a class of medications that fail nearly all who take them. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that statins are not benign drugs as they are associated with a host of serious side effects including muscle aches and pains, neuropathy, and cancer. And, I am not even factoring in the cost of prescribing drugs that fail nearly 99% who take them.
Statins are the perfect example of a class of medications that is bankrupting our medical system: A class of expensive medications that fail most who take them and are associated with serious side effects. As the new administration takes charge in Washington, D.C., I hope someone will look at our medical care and make rational decisions about which drugs should be used and which should not.
In the case of statin medications, a rational mind would conclude that this class of medications should be pulled from the market place. More information about statins can be found in my book, The Statin Disaster.
DrB
(1) http://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/calcium-score-screening-heart-scan
(2) JACC. Vol. 68, n. 19. 2016 Nov. 8, 2016. 2122-8.
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Thank you Dr. B for the gifts of your research as well as the open forum here! Glad to see contributions by readers as well.
I’ve blogged on this subject with some additional information on Omega 3s:
http://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2317758
Hi!
If we all lived a good lifestyle with appropriate diet and exercise, little or no stress and high levels of happiness we would not suffer from any diseases and therefore not require any form of preventative medicine. Coronary artery disease will then disappear and all those who make money out of coronary stenting will disappear. Diabetes and its complications will also disappear, think of how much money could be saved! Vaccines are dangerous and ineffective. Most Antibiotics have very little evidence for their efficacy; there is no need to show efficacy, just non inferiority which is not hard to show when there is little or no effect!
Pharma companies own national drug approval agencies who approve anything that is appropriately paid for. Indigenous medicine systems are systematically trashed by doctors with dubious connections to these drug firms. There are several alternatives to allopathy, we should be looking at, along with improving lifestyles.
jo
After my above comment and Dr. B’s response, re-reading the data in the letter, and reading through the logic in “The Statin Disaster”, I reconsider my position and agree that <1% benefit conferred, although perhaps statistically significant, is probably meaningless in the real world when balanced with attendant risks and side effects in most cases. The fact that significant metabolic pathways are altered is a more dominant though often dismissed concern by the medical and pharmaceutical establishment. Good work and thanks for the engaging dialogue.
Dr. N,
Thanks for the comment. I like the debate-whether we agree or not is not the point. Being able to have a debate is a good start–see my post today on vaccines.
However, in this case, I am happy I was able to sway your opinion as I feel statins should be outlawed.
DrB
Everyone that has asked me what to take for trig and cholesterol have gotten good results from fenugreek. Hdll is 85 and Ldl is 38. My ldl was always higher until I took fenugreek to fight off sinus infections back in mid 90s. I always get comments from lab techs and doctors because they have never seen HDL higher than LDL.. My trig 39. I don’t tell why, they don’t believe in herbs. I spend about 15 a year on that cooking herb. I just wished it worked on bones. I have taken strontium before but i was concern about getting too much in me.
I feel confident I don’t have plague. Isn’t plague in your arteries why the say use the station drugs?
(I don’t see how to reply to a specific post, this is a reply to Dr Nadelberg above.)
What does it mean when someone says “statins save lives”? If you pull someone who is drowning out of the the water you have saved their life (until something else gets them). But a 0.8% lower difference in cardiac events just means you have delayed the event by a few months. I think the Cochrane Library determined that statins might prolong life by a few days or hours. (Sorry, no reference.)
Eliot,
You are correct. Taking a statin for up to six years may, in the best of the studies, result in a median postponement of death of 4.1 days. Factor in the 99% failure rate and it sure sounds like a good therapy to me!.
Here is the study (there at others that show the same thing): BMJ Open 2015;5:e007118.
doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2014-
007118 (May 7, 2015)
DrB
I so appreciate this article by Dr. Brownstein and I know everyone will appreciate the great research Dr. Cate, MD and nutritionist to the LA Lakers (and great info on just how toxic hydrogenated fats are to the body*), did on Ancel Keyes and his background. Clearly Time Magazine, in putting this man on the front cover of their magazine, was promoting a shill. See: http://drcate.com/what-every-doctor-should-know-about-ancel-keys-experiments/
Great read!
* Dr. Cate said researchers out of Australia showed that a servings of French fries, fried in oil that is 4 or 5 days old, causes the arteries of a person to be about as responsive as an 80 year old person for as long as 24 hours. She said a cigarette only causes such for about 4 hours but fried foods can last 24 hours, damage the DNA, especially of the gonads, and are a huge cause of brain damage as healthy fats are so important to healthy executive brain function so depression, migraines, Alzheimer’s and more result from the consumption of such toxic hydrogenated fats.
Alpha lipoic acid/ozone may help neuropathy. Don’t get other take control of your health. You decide..not your family. The doctor uses fear. I have seen friends put their parent in nursing homes when they didn’t need to and lost them due to all the drugs they are given. Ozone may kill infections and gives oxygen to the brain/body/heart etc. People can do ozone treatments which last 4 days. My ozone treatment comes from my acupuncturist. Ozone helps the body heal. People can heal with natural help. They don’t need to use drugs which come with many bad side effects.
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S,
Thanks for the comments. Ozone is truly a wonderful therapy. You might want to look at my new book: Ozone: The Miracle Therapy.
DrB
Dr. Brownstein is right-on again. By the way, numerous studies in Europe and at the Mayo Clinic have shown that
only about 10% of heart attacks are caused by coronary blockages anyway. Use of ineffective and dangerous drugs like Statins and Proton Pump Inhibitors is the reason I quit Pharmacy, sold my house and went back to school. I am not
against drugs… just the way most of them are used — Like the ones Dr. B discusses here.
Hi Dr. WG,
When you study the mechanism of action of drugs, it is hard not to come to the same conclusion you have. Furthermore, the adverse effects of the most commonly used drugs should cause any health care provider to take a second look and see if there are alternatives out there. It is a sad state of affairs when the most profitable class of drugs–statins–fail so many and are associated with too many adverse effects.
DrB
Thank you for this Dr. B. These studies are concerning and there is an explanation being offered that a higher calcium score on a statin is a stabilized dense plaque unlikely to rupture. I do not buy it as we know that the lowest calcium scores have the best prognosis with zero being the winner. I get patients calcium scores down as you do with chelation, pycnogenol, K2 and other natural agents. Good work sir!!
Hello Dr. JK,
I agree–calcium scores and plaque buildup can be lowered with a holistic approach, not with a pharmaceutical approach. Statins stabilize plaque? Well, they don’t stabilize much as the data shows they fail 99% who take them.
DrB
I too am an MD and not a great fan of statins as currently broadly used, particularly to support treatment of the cholesterol hypothesis of coronary artery disease However, I think it is only fair to elaborate on the study results from the JACC article. First, the article I believe you intended to reference is Journal of the American College of Cardiology Volume 68, Issue 19, 8 November 2016, Pages 2123–2125 entitled Statin Medication Enhances Progression of Coronary Artery Calcification : The Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study.
The article concludes that patients on statin drugs had a 31% higher rate of CAC progression. this however was further examined and the conclusion of the letter was that “In this population, statin intake enhanced CAC progression, mostly in the less advanced stage of atherosclerosis. However, on statin, CAC progression did not lead to increased risk for coronary events…our results may support the hypothesis of a plaque-stabilizing effect of statins, which might be reflected by an increase in CAC”.
So the bottom line is that although you may have more lesions (certainly not a good thing), you did not suffer an increased risk of cardiac events in spite of the progression of the lesions. Perhaps the anti-inflammatory effect of the statins does, in fact, confer some benefit that in some cases, especially secondary prevention or perhaps advanced disease, are still worthwhile.
I appreciate your passion in advocating against the broad concept of “statins in the drinking water” but let’s be fair and acknowledge that in some instances there is demonstrable, perhaps live saving benefit. We needn’t throw out the baby with the bath water.
Dr. N,
You are correct what you wrote about their conclusions. This study showed a 0.8% lowered difference in coronary events in the statins v. the non statin subjects. Is 0.8% a “demonstrable, perhaps life-saving benefit?” I say, again, fuggetaboutit! The 0.8% benefit means that 125 subjects need to take a statin for five years (the length of the study) to prevent one cardiovascular event. I could use a stronger word here but I will say that a 0.8% benefit is nonsense. That means, in this study, statins failed 99.2% (124/125) who took them for five years. These subjects took an expensive medication that is associated with serious side effects and it failed over 99% of them.
Throw the baby out with the bath water? Forget the baby and the water. Just throw out the statins as they are a failed class of medications.
DrB
http://www.peripheralneuropathytreatments.com/neuropathy-ozone.htm Ozone is awesome. I wonder if Carrie Fisher would have been helped by it after her heart attack or if it was too late.
EDTA IV chelations remove Ca plaques in blood vessels. Pomegranate/EDTA suppositories/Vit K2/Mg/antioxidants and more may help blood vessels. Saturated/monounsaturated fat clogs my blood vessels. Statin drugs lower coenyzme Q10 which is the spark plug for the mitochondria. Taking coenyzme Q10 may help, but statin drugs lower cholesterol needed to make hormones/Vit D3 and brain/body needs. Cholesterol maybe high due to low thyroid due to gluten.They may not get thyroid medicine which would give energy to the heart and lower cholesterol but to the TSH being used which may be low due to gluten hurting the pituitary. Gluten/dairy/soy/sugar/GMO may cause swelling/inflammation which may cut off circulation. Gluten may make antibodies to the thyroid. Low thyroid may also let clotting disorders kick in. Serrapeptase may eat up clots. Vit C/Vit E/ginkgo/glutathione may help circulation/free radicals. Heat oils cause free radicals in me. Lecithin may help defat the liver. Fish oil may thin blood. I take Osteoprocare instead of dairy. Sugar may turn into fat that clogs blood vessels. Ozone may lower cholesterol and raise oxygen in the brain/body. Estriol/progesterone/testosterone may help circulation/the immune system/thyroid/energy and much more.
Thank you DrB. For those of you having trouble with your physicians insisting on statins, I asked my to note in my chart that I refuse to take a statin. Covers her butt, and she hasn’t mentioned it since.
Rebecca,
My feeling is,,,if your health care provider is recommending a statin, they must not understand how they work in the body and how they fail 99% who take them. It is time to educate them! If they continue to prescribe toxic, ineffective drugs, then it is time to change.
DrB
Anyone who has not already purchased Dr. B’s book, “The Statin Disaster”, should do so ASAP, even if they have to beg borrow or steal the money to do so. A companion book to that would be “How Statin Drugs Really Lower Cholesterol: And Kill You One Cell at a Time”, by James B. Yoseph, and Hannah Yoseph, M.D.
Not only do the authors of this latter book reveal the corruption and the conspiracy it took to bring statins to market,. they trace the medical history of statin development, give the readers the low down on the science of how they really work, and show how they slowly kill you, in simple language anyone can understand. And they back it all up with impeccable references.
This book reads like a detective novel and you cannot put it down once you start reading it until you are finished.
Once you read these two books, there is no physician or scientist on earth that could convince you to take a statin drug. Even one of the developers of one statin drug, when his cholesterol was considered “too high”, declined to take the drug, stating that “The Indigo dyer wears white pants.” To get his meaning, I invite you to read the book!
Dr. B,
After 20 years of practicing holistic nutrition, I still don’t know of a sure-fire way to reduce the calcium scores and rid the arteries of calcium. Do you have a protocol?
Dr. S,
Detoxifying the body and chelating out metals helps. I use IV chelation and oral chelation.
DrB
I had a difficult time tracking down the referenced article with the info supplied. It is easily located at this URL: http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/68/19/2123
Here is a link to the article
http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/68/19/2123
It is possible that Vitamin K2, MK7, can assist with keeping calcium where it belongs and out of the blood.
Several years ago I begged my daughter not to take any statin drug. She was using Omega 3’s instead. Maybe K2 would have assisted with that as well???
My story us very low so here is the short of it. I had heart bypass surgery in 2009 and it went bad. I got an infection in my chest and was put in a coma for 14 weeks.
After I came too and was going home the Surgeon told me he was putting me on Statin drugs. I told him I never had high Cholesterol in my life and because of the sides I have read about I don’t want it.
He went and told my family if I did not take the Statin drugs I would not live out the yr.
My mind not being right from the coma I went on it. From day one I started having pain my in my back and lower body. I told both my family and heart Dr. about this and all they did was keep changing the med.
Until one morning I could not stand up and walk. Today I have Peripheral Neuropathy due to the Statin Drugs.
I can’t walk with out a walker and when I do I can’t walk for very long. I have a lot of pain in my body. All this from being on Statin Drugs.
Phil
Wow! I am thrilled to read this. I refused to accept a statin prescription that my MD wanted me to start on back in September.
I refused because, first I am only 45 years old. I am being treated for hypothyroidism for the last 7 years and I do take HBP meds to control my blood pressure. But after having done much research about cholesterol, I knew taking a statin was no good. And I thought she was nuts to want me to take a statin. True my overall cholesterol was 237 and LDL was 168 but this was in part to my being on a ketogenic diet at the time so I went in knowing that these numbers might be off. BUT, my HDL was 59 and triglycerides were 51 and I knew these numbers were Awesome!!! And I had lost 7 lbs since my last visit. She got downright indignant when I refused the statin. But this was really the first time my overal cholesterol and LDL had been that high, so noooo way doc!
Thank you for your ongoing work to help us help ourselves.
Delo,
I am not sure if you are female or not, but if you are a woman, there are ZERO studies showing that statins improve the mortality for women.
DrB
Deborah R: You are right to be concerned about taking calcium, given the possibility of it contributing to soft tissue calcification. Be sure you are getting adequate magnesium along with the calcium. Also be sure to take a form of calcium that is bio-available, such as di-calcium malate. Look into strontium for bone health as well. Regarding magnesium, I recommend Dr. Carolyn Dean’s writings and even her supplements.
Deborah, I stopped recommending calcium for my patients years ago. I highly recommend Vitamin D, however. Another thing that will help your bones is weight bearing exercise and weight training. If what you are doing isn’t working, talk to your healthcare provider about doing something else but do your research first because many of them only know the pharmaceutical method of treatment.
If an herb does wonders for one’s cholesterol would it also help with calcification? I have to take calcium and osteoporosis pill. I have been wondering for a while what the calcium is doing since it is not helping my condition. My bones are getting worse.
Which of the JACC Vol. 68:19 articles are you citing here? Thank you!
Laura,
Pages 2122-8.
DrB
Can long term use of Statins produce Parkinson-type symptoms?
Pam,
Yes, I have seen that in my practice. There are articles on both sides of this issue.
DrB