I had a heart attack at age 56 but did not have any of the normal risk factors. The doctors put me on lipitor but I had tremendous muscle aches. They switched me to crestor which eliminated the muscle aches. I did not like taking statins because of all the different side effects. I got hooked-up with a functional medicine doctor who did a NMR lipid profile. The statin made my small dense LDL particle size increase in number so when we did another NMR while I was off the statin the small dense LDL particle size decreased but my LDL and total cholesterol increased. I started to take a sustained release niacin by Endurance Products. The niacin decreased my LDL levels significantly and also raised my HDL. Niacin has so many benefits over the statins that I don't understand why doctors don't use it as their first choice for cholesterol control. Do you Dr. Mercola or anyone else have any experiences with niacin?
Please keep the attention not on cholesterol levels but on mortality. My favorite scientific study comparing statins and omega 3 fatty acids is Archives of Internal Medicine, April 2005 where the results were – statin drugs reduced overall mortality(death) by 13% versus omega-3 fatty acids reduced overall mortality by 23%.
I do find this site interesting and informative but this article is not entirely "balanced". If you read the British Medical Journal May 20, 2010; 340:c2197 , you will find "
RESULTS: Individual statins were not significantly associated with risk of Parkinson's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, venous thromboembolism, dementia, osteoporotic fracture, gastric cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, renal cancer, breast cancer, or prostate cancer. Statin use was associated with decreased risks of oesophageal cancer but increased risks of moderate or serious liver dysfunction, acute renal failure, moderate or serious myopathy, and cataract. Adverse effects were similar across statin types for each outcome except liver dysfunction where risks were highest for fluvastatin. A dose-response effect was apparent for acute renal failure and liver dysfunction." Not great but not as bad as one might be led to believe ! Fluvastatin seems worst for liver dysfunction [I'm on Simvastatin], dosage is a factor [I'm on 5mg. daily ... minimal dose]. I'm 66 in reasonable health with no statin "side-effects", you pays your money, takes your choice, as they say. Any drug has potential benefits and side-effects as do so-called supplements, let's just not rush into personal decisions without weighing up ALL available data, some of which show statins in a more favorable light. Cheers to all from New Zealand.
In regard to cholesterol and ways to lower it naturally, my experience is if you raise your hormone levels to optimum levels, then your cholesterol will lower naturally, because all your hormones are made from cholesterol. Also, there is much research on HDL and hormone levels, in that the higher your hormone levels, the less HDL you need because it becomes more efficient at removing LDL. My recommendation would be to check hormone levels first, increase them naturally, and cholesterol will lower by itself.
When my mother got on statins, I tried to discourage her. I told her Mom I give you seven years on those
drugs – they are dangerous. When she started having severe shoulder pains I told her Mom it is the statin drugs but her doctor said it wasn't. And 7 years later she died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 72.
i used to date a vascular surgeon…his doctor prescribed lipitor 5 years ago…within 18 months his fine muscle coordination was shot leaving him unable to perform his surgery…my inlaws are both on statins…my father-in-law has episodes of bizarre muscle dysfunction usually occurring when he is out for a walk and his legs just start going faster and faster until he can no longer maintain balance or control and he falls – often injuring himself…but the doctors refuse to connect the dots…statins are the DEVIL…and, as a previous writer so eloquently worded it, it is committing murder legally….get the word out good people! i refer people to this site all of the time because dr. M is awesome in his efforts to get the word out…THANKS Dr. M! we need more people like you.
They need to do a study on people who live into their 80's and above what prescription drugs they take. I bet the people that live beyond 90 years old take nothing, just pure good foods, healthy diets.
My younger brother is a diabetic, one of the first drugs his traditional physician prescribed for him was a statin. He complained about the side effects, and was told that he has to contend with said effects, because he really needs these drugs. His next move was to stop taking the statins, which angered the physician. He is now being treated by a Naturopath. His first move was to say no genetically modified foods, and nothing boxed, or preprocessed, and no microwave food.
My 72 yr old mother didn't experience adverse side effects until 3 years after she started taking 20MG Lipitor, a Statin for high cholesterol. Her muscles were deteriorating to the point that she couldn't get up out of a chair, go up stairs anymore without severe pain, which was mostly felt in her hip and knee joints. She said it was a sharp, throbbing, burning pain. One MD was even talking to her about needing the latest hip & knee replacement surgeries! The MD said it was age related and never bothered to question any prescribed drugs!
At my advise I told her to stop taking it and see if her pain symptoms would go away. Once she stopped taking it, within a week her pain subsided and within a month they were all gone! She also got severe eczema from LIpitor, that went away once she stopped too.
A cholesterol number below 200 is not as important as the medical community would have us believe.Most people don't know where cholesterol comes from,or why it exists,yet they will take a chemical that interferes with a natural bodily function.
Dr. Mercola – Have you ever had your NMR Lipoprofile done? That is a more advanced test than just a plain old lipid panel. It shows particle numbers and is more beneficial to diagnose cholesterol and insulin resistance problems. Please check into at http://www.liposcience.com and have one done asap. Also if you have bad results then find a lipidologist in your area by going to http://www.lipid.org. Some of them will consider alternatives to statins. I work for one that does as well at http://www.advlip.com.
Love your website – always full of interesting facts.
I am in a high risk group – family history of CHD, and relatively high cholesterol. 8 years ago I was prescribed statins, and within 48 hours was suffering severe muscle pain (I'm already substantially disabled, I don't need anything making life worse!). I reported back to my GP who went into a massive sulk (instead, of course, of reporting the side-effects, as he should have).
I run health-orientated blog – COPD and CFS mainly, as I have long personal experience of both – and I spend a lot of my time researching drugs (I take 16, daily), and following up medical research. I've been aware of the problems that are only now getting publicity for some years, and have written about them. As a result, you couldn't PAY me to take statins.
In my view statins are far too dangerous for mass consumption, on a just-in-case basis, and yet they frequently get recommended for other conditions beside high cholesterol – they've become Snake Oil for the 21st century.
For years my husband's numbers were bad and although he tried different statins over the years he always had to get off them due to the muscle problems. I had tried to convince him all the while he could control it through diet, he said he couldn't. Well, when his triglycerides shot up to 977 it scared him and he decided to listen to his cardiologist's nutritionist and go on a strict diet for a couple of years. Low and behold, after the first 3 months his numbers dropped significantly and after 6 months his cholesterol and triglycerides were normal….and for mr. junk food-aholic that was a feat!
I'm confused by the above statement, "You can also do the same thing with your triglycerides and HDL ratio. That percentage should be below 2."
To me 2% means .02. Well no matter which way I do it: take the triglycerides and divide by HDL or the other way around I don't come close to .02. Any suggestions?
http://www.nutritionreview.org/…/statins.php
I received this link when I sent your article on to my friend(who takes statins!) . It seems fairly convincing too in the opposite direction!
I had a heart attack at age 56 but did not have any of the normal risk factors. The doctors put me on lipitor but I had tremendous muscle aches. They switched me to crestor which eliminated the muscle aches. I did not like taking statins because of all the different side effects. I got hooked-up with a functional medicine doctor who did a NMR lipid profile. The statin made my small dense LDL particle size increase in number so when we did another NMR while I was off the statin the small dense LDL particle size decreased but my LDL and total cholesterol increased. I started to take a sustained release niacin by Endurance Products. The niacin decreased my LDL levels significantly and also raised my HDL. Niacin has so many benefits over the statins that I don't understand why doctors don't use it as their first choice for cholesterol control. Do you Dr. Mercola or anyone else have any experiences with niacin?
Don
Please keep the attention not on cholesterol levels but on mortality. My favorite scientific study comparing statins and omega 3 fatty acids is Archives of Internal Medicine, April 2005 where the results were – statin drugs reduced overall mortality(death) by 13% versus omega-3 fatty acids reduced overall mortality by 23%.
I do find this site interesting and informative but this article is not entirely "balanced". If you read the British Medical Journal May 20, 2010; 340:c2197 , you will find "
RESULTS: Individual statins were not significantly associated with risk of Parkinson's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, venous thromboembolism, dementia, osteoporotic fracture, gastric cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, renal cancer, breast cancer, or prostate cancer. Statin use was associated with decreased risks of oesophageal cancer but increased risks of moderate or serious liver dysfunction, acute renal failure, moderate or serious myopathy, and cataract. Adverse effects were similar across statin types for each outcome except liver dysfunction where risks were highest for fluvastatin. A dose-response effect was apparent for acute renal failure and liver dysfunction." Not great but not as bad as one might be led to believe ! Fluvastatin seems worst for liver dysfunction [I'm on Simvastatin], dosage is a factor [I'm on 5mg. daily ... minimal dose]. I'm 66 in reasonable health with no statin "side-effects", you pays your money, takes your choice, as they say. Any drug has potential benefits and side-effects as do so-called supplements, let's just not rush into personal decisions without weighing up ALL available data, some of which show statins in a more favorable light. Cheers to all from New Zealand.
In regard to cholesterol and ways to lower it naturally, my experience is if you raise your hormone levels to optimum levels, then your cholesterol will lower naturally, because all your hormones are made from cholesterol. Also, there is much research on HDL and hormone levels, in that the higher your hormone levels, the less HDL you need because it becomes more efficient at removing LDL. My recommendation would be to check hormone levels first, increase them naturally, and cholesterol will lower by itself.
When my mother got on statins, I tried to discourage her. I told her Mom I give you seven years on those
drugs – they are dangerous. When she started having severe shoulder pains I told her Mom it is the statin drugs but her doctor said it wasn't. And 7 years later she died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 72.
i used to date a vascular surgeon…his doctor prescribed lipitor 5 years ago…within 18 months his fine muscle coordination was shot leaving him unable to perform his surgery…my inlaws are both on statins…my father-in-law has episodes of bizarre muscle dysfunction usually occurring when he is out for a walk and his legs just start going faster and faster until he can no longer maintain balance or control and he falls – often injuring himself…but the doctors refuse to connect the dots…statins are the DEVIL…and, as a previous writer so eloquently worded it, it is committing murder legally….get the word out good people! i refer people to this site all of the time because dr. M is awesome in his efforts to get the word out…THANKS Dr. M! we need more people like you.
They need to do a study on people who live into their 80's and above what prescription drugs they take. I bet the people that live beyond 90 years old take nothing, just pure good foods, healthy diets.
My younger brother is a diabetic, one of the first drugs his traditional physician prescribed for him was a statin. He complained about the side effects, and was told that he has to contend with said effects, because he really needs these drugs. His next move was to stop taking the statins, which angered the physician. He is now being treated by a Naturopath. His first move was to say no genetically modified foods, and nothing boxed, or preprocessed, and no microwave food.
My 72 yr old mother didn't experience adverse side effects until 3 years after she started taking 20MG Lipitor, a Statin for high cholesterol. Her muscles were deteriorating to the point that she couldn't get up out of a chair, go up stairs anymore without severe pain, which was mostly felt in her hip and knee joints. She said it was a sharp, throbbing, burning pain. One MD was even talking to her about needing the latest hip & knee replacement surgeries! The MD said it was age related and never bothered to question any prescribed drugs!
At my advise I told her to stop taking it and see if her pain symptoms would go away. Once she stopped taking it, within a week her pain subsided and within a month they were all gone! She also got severe eczema from LIpitor, that went away once she stopped too.
A cholesterol number below 200 is not as important as the medical community would have us believe.Most people don't know where cholesterol comes from,or why it exists,yet they will take a chemical that interferes with a natural bodily function.
Dr. Mercola – Have you ever had your NMR Lipoprofile done? That is a more advanced test than just a plain old lipid panel. It shows particle numbers and is more beneficial to diagnose cholesterol and insulin resistance problems. Please check into at http://www.liposcience.com and have one done asap. Also if you have bad results then find a lipidologist in your area by going to http://www.lipid.org. Some of them will consider alternatives to statins. I work for one that does as well at http://www.advlip.com.
Love your website – always full of interesting facts.
I am in a high risk group – family history of CHD, and relatively high cholesterol. 8 years ago I was prescribed statins, and within 48 hours was suffering severe muscle pain (I'm already substantially disabled, I don't need anything making life worse!). I reported back to my GP who went into a massive sulk (instead, of course, of reporting the side-effects, as he should have).
I run health-orientated blog – COPD and CFS mainly, as I have long personal experience of both – and I spend a lot of my time researching drugs (I take 16, daily), and following up medical research. I've been aware of the problems that are only now getting publicity for some years, and have written about them. As a result, you couldn't PAY me to take statins.
In my view statins are far too dangerous for mass consumption, on a just-in-case basis, and yet they frequently get recommended for other conditions beside high cholesterol – they've become Snake Oil for the 21st century.
Ron.
For years my husband's numbers were bad and although he tried different statins over the years he always had to get off them due to the muscle problems. I had tried to convince him all the while he could control it through diet, he said he couldn't. Well, when his triglycerides shot up to 977 it scared him and he decided to listen to his cardiologist's nutritionist and go on a strict diet for a couple of years. Low and behold, after the first 3 months his numbers dropped significantly and after 6 months his cholesterol and triglycerides were normal….and for mr. junk food-aholic that was a feat!
I'm confused by the above statement, "You can also do the same thing with your triglycerides and HDL ratio. That percentage should be below 2."
To me 2% means .02. Well no matter which way I do it: take the triglycerides and divide by HDL or the other way around I don't come close to .02. Any suggestions?