A study conducted by researchers at the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, US suggest that drugs called statins cut the risk of developing colon, liver, breast, prostate, lung, pancreatic and oesophageal cancers by half.
These include the most common cancers like lung, breast, colorectal and prostate.
The polypill even has a statin in it. So if this research turns out to be true why aren’t we prescribing polypills to everyone over 40? They seem like they’d cut down on cancer and cardiovascular disease rates drastically if they work as well as the research says they do.
That was my thought too. Evenso if the polypill can give an 80% decline in cardiovascular disease and a 50% decline in cancer (due to the statin in it) wouldn’t that be worth it?
I don’t know if it’s worth it. I know that statins raise my liver enzymes and make me foggy-headed, and that’s why I don’t take them. People don’t live very long without livers, or at least that’s my understanding. From what I can tell, doctors are prescribing statins (and possibly the polypill) pretty frequently. Statins are fairly new, and we don’t know the long-term side effects. Since I have a couple of side effects, I guess I’ll be part of the control group, assuming I live that long.
Remember, amphetamines were almost universally regarded as wonder pills back in the 60s, and possibly the 50s as well, and now we know that the side effects far outweigh the benefits for most people. I’ve lived long enough to know that many drugs are hailed as marvelous when they first come out, but then their long term effects and side effects make them unsuitable for a great many people. Same with medical procedures. The media LOVE breaking medical news, and will play it up. For instance, lately I’ve been hearing about the benefits of dark chocolate. This does not mean that I will go out and consume more dark chocolate than before (I love dark chocolate), it’s just something interesting. I know, however, that some people, probably quite a few, will go out and eat half a pound of dark chocolate a day.
I am not medically trained, but I do like to read medical news.
Incidentally, I think that you could have answered your question yourself by Googling the words “statins side effects” without the quote marks, and found a whole bunch of articles on why statins are not safe or desirable for everyone.
I’ve had over a thousand patients on statins over the years, and I’ve probably had to take over a hundred of them off them due to untoward side-effects, generally muscle inflammation. Usually the muscle inflammation isn’t bad, but it can be so severe that it damages the kidneys.
So if you put everyone on statins, best be ready to build a lot more dialysis units to take care of all the folks who no longer have functioning kidneys.
I’ve been on crestor for a couple months now. I thought I might be experiencing muscle pain because of them, but I decided it was a change in my workout that was the culprit.
Question, QtM…are you supposed to fast before getting a cholesterol test?
Generally, yes. Mainly to get an accurate reading of your triglycerides, which could be artificially elevated after eating a meal. IIRC, fasting doesn’t matter much for measuring the HDL and LDL levels otherwise. But if your triglycerides are too high (say over 400 or so), the LDL reading won’t be accurate either.