The great cholesterol con

causeds cancer apparently.

Not really. They get more money if they do what they are asked to do. The money is for patient care not wages.

A recent review of statin treatment here:

I think to use cholesterol in isolation is the error here. The medicalisation of normality is a big problem these days, as deciding what is normal is rather difficult. What is normal for me is not normal for you and the bands eventually get wide. Too much of anything is bad, and that includes the chemicals in medicines. the classic tale of the old woman who swallowed a fly is a well known warning to all those who have a small ailment or'risk factor' in their lives. Statins as with much medicine has side effects. This seems to be because the same elements controled by the chemicals have different roles in different bits of our bodies. we are sort of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut in my view. In a way its the old dumming down again. I often get the feeling that doctors think we do not have the capacity to understand complex concepts. That needs to change. Brian

Go on then tell us how it makes money for the NHS. The drug companies get most of their cash from the NHS, I find it difficult to see how it makes both of them money.

No they don't. It costs the doctor for every prescription they do.

Haven't read the book, and IANAGP but AIUI ...

There are two sorts of cholesterol, A & B, and >

I don't think that is quite correct.

The starting point was that someone with diabetes had about the same risk of a heart attack as a non-diabetic who had already had a heart attack.

So they started treating diabetics with the same drugs that they gave to hear attack victims.

IIRC slow release aspirin as well as statins.

A few years on they realised that although the risks were the same, the causes were not and so revised their thinking.

Correlation and causation strikes again.

Oh, and simvastatin is the work of the devil.

Cheers

Dave R

Works the other way round - if they don't hit the targets part of their funding is withheld.

However this still amounts to money into the business being linked to targets for such things as prescribing drugs, giving flu jabs etc.

As with any small business, profit means money in the partners pockets one way or another.

Cheers

Dave R

How they arrived at the idea to treat diabetics isn't important compared with their effect, which is significant and beneficial.

The Heart Protection Study was funded by the Medical Research Council and the British Heart Foundation. It looked at the effect of cholesterol-lowering statins in people with diabetes. The trial used

The second study, the Collaborative AtoRvastatin Diabetes Study (CARDS) was sponsored by Diabetes UK, the Department of Health and Pfizer UK. It involved almost 3,000 people with Type 2 diabetes and was designed to compare the effectiveness of lipid-lowering drugs for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. The trial was due to be completed in June 2005 but has been stopped early because results collected already showed a significant benefit and the data strongly suggests that statins benefit certain people with Type 2 diabetes."

Whether the studies achieved their results by reducing cholesterol, or whether that was irrelevant and some other mechanism such as reduced inflammation was responsible, isn't known AFAIK (reduced cholesterol was assumed). But one can't get away from the fact that significant reductions in heart attack, stroke etc were achieved, so much so that the CARDS study was terminated early because to continue it in the face of the evidence would have been unethical.

I didn't miss the point. I disagreed with your assessment of the probable competence of the WHO researchers.

This is something I have looked at in considerable detail and I am satisfied that a total cholesterol level of 3.0 or less would mean I have no risk of certain types of heart disease. I am also satisfied that the additional benefit I would get from reducing it below my naturally occurring 4.0 does not justify the side effects I get from any of the statins.

Colin Bignell

Or the hole in the ozone layer that was going to kill us all...

Michael Mosely covered this in "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor" the other night.

The Montreal Protocol sorted that.

You wouldn't want to go below 4 mmol/l anyway, as the risk of brain hemorrhage increases below that value. See

An interesting video here.

A pal of mine who in his late 40s at the time was told his cholesterol was above the desirable range and was prescribed one of theses statins to get it back down. Within a week of commencing this course of medication, he suffered a massive stroke which left him permanently disabled. He'd been very active and hard working before going on these pills but has been unable to work since and now never will again. I can't help wondering if these meds caused the stroke. I don't know what their mechanism of action is, but if they precipitate the release of too much fat into the bloodstream too quickly then this would seem to be asking for trouble (in my humble opinion as a non-medical person). It's certainly made me very wary about ever going on them myself. If I had no choice then I'd taper the dosage up to the recommended level over a period of a few weeks just to be on the safe(r) side.

Lets think about that, you do what they want and you get more money, hmm looks like I was correct.

The money is to provide the service, the doctor only gets it if he provides the service rather than employing someone else to do it.

They reduce the fat in the blood.

Interesting - thank you. I will mention it to my GP next time I see him, although we are now past the point where there are any more different statins he can try to persuade me to try.

Colin Bignell