Re: Diabetics and statins

From: Adam Becker Sr (adam_becker_sr_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 08/24/04 

Date: 24 Aug 2004 06:56:27 -0700

Charly Coughran <ccoughran@DELETE_TO_RESPOND.ucsd.edu> wrote in message news:<Xns954DBE00CA512ccoughranDELETETORES@68.6.19.6>...
>
> Just to put my personal conclusions on the table, which I don't think I
> have done before, I take a statin. I have about every heart attack risk
> factor possible (very strong family history, high blood pressure, elevated
> LDL, central body fat, smoker - although it was a bunch of years ago, over
> 55, and diabetes). When my LDL got well over 100, despite a vigorous
> exercise program, I started on a statin.

Man, I just don't know.

I don't have all the risk factors that you did. But just being a T2
is a honking big risk factor by itself. I'm not averse to taking
meds, and I realize that all meds have risks. I'm willing to accept
higher risks for more dire conditions, and preventing heart attack is
pretty dire.

I prefer drugs that are tightly targeted in their effect - rather than
systemic drugs that derange many different organs and systems. That's
why, say, even though arsenic used to be the best cure for syphilis,
it never was a very good treatment.

In another post, you point out that there's accumulating evidence that
the underlying defect in diabetes appears often to be a metabolic
processing error in the mitochondria. Statins also alter the
mitochondria, but not in a way that addresses the diabetes error. As
such, they are deranging literally every cell in the body.

My last LDL reading was 127 / HDL 43. I've lost weight and improved
my diet since then. Will it get my LDL below 100? I hope so. Will I
take statins if I can't do it on diet, weight and exercise? Gee, that
would be a tough one. Right now I'm thinking that I'm going to have
myself tested for two other risk factors. I want to see if I've got
antibodies to Chlamydia Pnuemonia, and I want a - forget the technical
name for it - the X-ray test for calcium that assesses how much
ateriosclerosis I've got. (I already did very well on my cardio
stress test.) If I've got those risk factors, I'll probably do
statins. Otherwise I'm inclined to delay, look for some other
alternatives, including some milder anti-LDL drugs. The statins give
me the willies.

I could change my mind. If I can't find that Lancet article on
diabetes and statins at the nearby university library, I'll pony up
the $30 to buy it online. Unfortuneately, the abstract gives no
clue as to how well controlled the diabetic subjects were. If they're
basing their conclusion on folks who's A1C are over 8, then I'm going
to be loath to apply the results to myself (6.0 and dropping.)

Adam Becker
T2 Diabetes
5'10"
181 lbs
non-smoker
48 yrs
not much heart disease in family
1000 mg/d metformin
A1C 6.0
BP 118/78

  sci.med.cardiology added as this discussion seems now to be more
about
  cardio than diabetes.

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