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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-02-2005, 02:04 PM   #41
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

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Originally Posted by markplus4
I wonder if it ever dawned on the geniuses in the medical community that your body produces cholesterol for a reason and that artificially lowering it could be deleterious to your overall health.
Everybody is different. * Some people have genetic abnormalities that cause the body to produce too much LDL, for example. * Others are victims of poor diets or sedentary lifestyles. * That's why I think it's important to understand what is going on with your body. * Experiment on yourself. * If you and your doc ultimately agree that drugs are the right course, then ideally you also want to understand the mechanism of action for the drugs you take.

Biology is all about finely tuned machines. *Drugs are often a brute-force sledge hammer, but sometimes they actually target the root cause of the problem and offset some mechanical screw-up you might have.
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-02-2005, 02:07 PM   #42
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

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Originally Posted by Eagle43
Just got preliminary results.* Have to discuss with the doc, but here they are.

Last Year's lab results* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Most recent lab results
LDL.............139* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 140
hdl...............59* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *72
Triglyceride..98* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *67
Total...........218* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *225
Your total:HLD ratio has improved quite a bit. It went from 3.7 (good) to 3.15 (great). Don't underestimate the benefits of high HDL.
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-02-2005, 02:53 PM   #43
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

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Originally Posted by Eagle43
So, flax seed or not, 200-225 seems to be my cholesterol level.* Since we like garlic, olive oil, fish, salads, etc. and seldom eat red meat and since I exercise 7 days a week (almost without fail), I'd guess that without drug intervention, that it's in the genes.* Lipitor hurts my liver.* We'll see what the doc says. It would really urinate me off to have a heart attack after all this work. Of course, it's happened to other exercise enthusiasts (like Jim Fixx) before.*
Your results look pretty good to me, as a non-expert. Before you worry too much, either have your doctor show you, or find on the web, the actual raw results of total mortality and HD mortality in the most successful Lipitor vs. nada trial. The way it is usually expressed sounds very meaningful, "Lipitor reduced heart attacks by 27%” or whatever. However, (I don't have the true numbers, I am just illustrating) if out of 1000 men, 10 died with placebo, and 5 died with Lipitor, that is reported as a 50% mortality improvement. But it seems to me more relevant to note that in the treated group 995 are still alive, and in the nada group 990 are still alive. 99.5% vs. 99%.

And this is the absolute best case. Even cholesterol lowering advocates have to admit that once a man is over 60 or so, cholesterol either makes no difference, or high cholesterol is associated with longevity. And it women, it hardly seems to matter at any age.

These are great drugs from the POV of the drug company. Usually drugs taken for one's lifetime are for pretty sick people, whose lifetimes are maybe short, and who are a relatively small % of the population. Anti-hypertensives are a contra-example, but the patients are clinically sick, even if sometimes only mildly so. Off the top of my head, birth control pills are the only popular example of a drug intended to be taken for a long time by healthy people, prior to the advent of statins.

Given this extreme profitability,*I at least would expect some high quality spinning coming from the drug companies, their researchers, and their clinical trial docs in academia. These people bend over backward to magnify positive results, and explain away as anomalies negative results- such as one trial where 7 or 8 women in the treated group got breast cancer, and only one in the placebo group did.

And let us not forget that our friendly Family Doc has a horse in this race too. I have a dermatologist friend who used to brag that Derm is the only specialty where people never get better, and rarely die or get much worse. Treating cholesterol, as opposed to heart disease, brings a lot of Docs formerly denied this cushy station in out of the cold.

H
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-02-2005, 03:48 PM   #44
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

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I've seen studies that show that there is no difference in "total mortality" for statin users vs. non statin users.
Here is a pretty good summary of the research, including the study you cited about overall mortality rates in low risk patients.

http://www.world-of-fungi.org/Mostly...EY_Statins.htm

Shorter, but more recent:

http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050315/1137.html
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-02-2005, 08:51 PM   #45
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

You might want to add half a standard aspirin a day. The caplets can be easily broken in two.

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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-03-2005, 02:57 AM   #46
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

If you break the aspirin in half, you lose the benefit of the enteric coating that protects your stomach. Better to just buy the low dose aspirin designed for heart care.
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-03-2005, 07:31 AM   #47
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

Well, I take an 81-mil enteric-coated asprin every day; and vitamins C, E, a senior multi vitamin, and a fish-oil tablet. Also Smart Balance and Total Control fake butter which say they help with cholesterol. I'm sick of wheat bread, oatmeal, and vitamin-enriched cereal. Eat lots of walnuts, almonds, onions and garlic. Two glasses of wine every night (usually white, not red).

It's the genes, man, the genes. I do hope that whoever said that total cholesterol doesn't mean much once you pass 60 is correct.

The good news is the hdl/total ratio is 3.1, and the triglycerides are 67.

Maybe it's the Texas Water??

BTW: As I have noted, growing up poor, so my family ate red beans and rice about twice a week, sometimes more. Who knew that was good for you? I thought we were deprived of those steaks.
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-03-2005, 07:36 AM   #48
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

Might want to skip the vit-E; recent study (sorry, no link) suggests high dosage is not circulatory system friendly. The multi probably has all the E you need.
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-03-2005, 12:00 PM   #49
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

High cholesterol and especially high triglycerides are in my family, me my dad and my grandfather all had it. We all tried various diets and excercise, never moved it much. None of us took any pills for it, although my dad tried some high blood pressure meds for a few weeks that made him dizzy until he discovered that his bp was only high when he went to the doctor. Grandpa made it to 88 while smoking wih asthma and eating habits that included spreading congealed bacon grease on biscuits. Dads at 71 and probably in better shape than I am and certainly with better health and eating habits than his dad.
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-04-2005, 05:51 AM   #50
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

Quote:
Might want to skip the vit-E; recent study (sorry, no link) suggests high dosage is not circulatory system friendly.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...-vitamin_x.htm

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content...ct/293/11/1338

I do take 30 mg of Co-Q10, as statins interfere with your body's ability to produce it naturally. The resultant low Q10 has been implicated in some of the side effects of statins. This research is still a work in progress too though.
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-04-2005, 06:38 AM   #51
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

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Originally Posted by Michael
If you break the aspirin in half, you lose the benefit of the enteric coating that protects your stomach. Better to just buy the low dose aspirin designed for heart care.

Obviously not a dryer sheet guy.




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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?
Old 06-04-2005, 11:58 AM   #52
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Re: Who takes statins? Which ones?

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Obviously not a dryer sheet guy.
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