by Dr. Michael Murray
(GreenMedInfo) Introduction
The American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) released four new guidelines dealing with the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) by better assessing risk and by managing cholesterol, lifestyle, and weight.
The big news is that doctors are now being urged to move away from specific targets for cholesterol and instead focus on clinical assessment of risk.
[Sponsor Healing Link: Cardiovascular Healing & Rebuilding Protocol]
Unfortunately, the misguided recommendation will be to increase the focus on prescribing statins. Under the current guidelines, statins are recommended for about 15 percent of adults. With the new guidelines 44 percent of men and 22 percent of women would meet the criteria for taking a statin.
The answer to the question “Do the New Guidelines for Statins Make Sense” is yes only if the criteria is providing further big profits to the drug industry. Honestly, I think more than anything the new guidelines are an acknowledgement of the failure of statins to produce an increase in life expectancy for 75% of the patients the drugs are being prescribed to.
In my opinion, increasing the number of Americans being prescribed statins will only increase the number of people these drugs will provide absolutely no benefit to and likely further increase the problem of statin-induced side effects.
Background Data:
There is no question that elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels greatly increase the risk of death due to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Yet while the drug companies would like us all believe that it’s as simple as taking a statin drug to reduce your risk of a heart attack or stroke, it’s just not that simple. Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are sold primarily under the premise that they will save lives by lowering cholesterol levels, but in reality they have not demonstrated an ability to extend life in over 75% of the patient population these drugs are currently prescribed for.
Annual sales of these drugs now exceed $25 billion. They are a huge profit generator for the drug companies. Without a doubt the creation of the statin drug empire is perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the modern drug era. But, this is an achievement the drug companies and doctors should be ashamed of.
While high cholesterol is an important risk factor, it is important to note that more than half of people dying from a heart attack or stroke have low to normal cholesterol levels. The drug companies’ and government’s prior response to this fact is to lower the suggested target cholesterol levels even further, thereby effectively casting an even wider net for potential customers. With the new guidelines, it is obvious that the goal is to turn as many Americans as possible into patients hooked on statins.
It is very interesting that the majority of the expert members of the panel that drafted the new guidelines had either received grants from or were paid consulting or speakers’ fees by the companies that make some of the most popular statin drugs.
New Data:
There really is not any new data, but rather an interpretation of prior data by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines. The conclusion of the review was to give recommendations that ultimately focused on four groups of individuals identified as being strong candidates for statin use:
Individuals with clinical cardiovascular disease.
Individuals with primary elevations of LDL–C ≥190 mg/dl.
Individuals 40 to 75 years of age with diabetes.
Individuals without clinical cardiovascular disease or diabetes who are 40 to 75 years of age with an estimated 10-year cardiovascular disease mortality risk of 7.5% or higher.