Statins: benefit confined to high risk

From: fresh~horses (fresh~horses_at_despammed.com)
Date: 10/05/04 

Date: 4 Oct 2004 21:46:04 -0700

"The benefit is really confined to people at high risk. We have no
trials on the effect of giving them to low-risk groups."

Professor Tom Saunders, Kings College London on statins.

* No evidence for statin benefit to women w/o heart disease
* Lowering cholesterol of elderly increases risk of cancers

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=568865&host=3&dir=59

A cry from the heart

Cholesterol-busting statins were hailed as modern wonder drugs. Now
some doctors are not so sure, reports Jerome Burne

05 October 2004

Last week, a number of senior medical figures went public with
detailed concerns that the widely accepted benefits of statins are
exaggerated.

Their worries were set out in an open letter to the American National
Institutes of Health and the National Cholesterol Education Program
that called for a radical rethink of the guidelines for statin use.
Signed by more than 30 researchers and clinicians from prestigious
universities and medical centres including Harvard, Cornell and Johns
Hopkins, it makes two startling claims: that there is no evidence for
statins benefiting women who have not had a heart attack, and that
lowering the cholesterol levels of elderly patients increases the risk
of their getting other diseases such as cancer.

Similar concerns about the value and safety of statins have been
raised before, but always by individual researchers. One such critic
is Professor Tom Saunders, a nutritionist at King's College London who
opposed Dr Reckless's statins-in-the-water idea. He claims that the
drugs have "significant" side effects, and casts doubt on their value
for patients who have not suffered a heart attack. "The benefit is
really confined to people at high risk," he says. "We have no trials
on the effect of giving them to low-risk groups."

Another critic has been Dr John Abramson of Harvard Medical School,
who was quoted in the BMJ last week opposing a plan to allow statins
to be sold over the counter in the US. "In primary prevention [ie
people without heart disease], statin therapy does not significantly
reduce mortality or the overall risk of serious illness," he said.

The NIH letter is a significant step, as it represents the first time
that opponents of statin therapy have joined forces. "It takes a lot
of guts for mainstream academics to put their head over the parapet on
this one," says one of the two UK signatories, the Cheshire GP Malcolm
Kendrick, who has long been publicly sceptical about the value of
cholesterol as a useful marker for heart disease.

The letter was in response to the National Heart, Lung and Blood
Institute's 2001 cholesterol education programme, which recommended
that statins be prescribed for women at moderately high risk of heart
disease, on the grounds that six studies had shown that the drugs
would reduce their risk of having a heart attack. The NIH letter
asserts: "Not one of the six studies provides significance evidence to
support this claim. The guidelines admit that studies supporting this
recommendation 'generally are lacking' (meaning they don't exist)."
The letter also claims that in one study, looking at women with
several risk factors but no history of heart disease, the risk of
heart attack among those treated with statins actually increased by 10
per cent.

-------more------

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The Cholesterol Con - Where Were the Doctors?
    ... many years of the Cholesterol Con - where were the doctors? ... "Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good?", which blew the lid off the theory ... Pravachol - can cut the odds that you will die of a heart attack by ... Although medical research suggests that statins can definitely ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Business Week Cover Story of Jan 28, 2008
    ... Martin Winn's cholesterol level was inching up. ... Such drugs are the best-selling medicines in history, used by more than 13 million Americans and an additional 12 million patients around the world, producing $27.8 billion in sales in 2006. ... Statins certainly performed as they should for Winn, dropping his cholesterol level by 20%. ... Yes, Wright saw, the drugs can be life-saving in patients who already have suffered heart attacks, somewhat reducing the chances of a recurrence that could lead to an early death. ...
    (alt.support.diabetes)
  • Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good?
    ... Martin Winn's cholesterol level was inching up. ... Such drugs are the best-selling medicines in history, used by more than 13 million Americans and an additional 12 million patients around the world, producing $27.8 billion in sales in 2006. ... Statins certainly performed as they should for Winn, dropping his cholesterol level by 20%. ... Yes, Wright saw, the drugs can be life-saving in patients who already have suffered heart attacks, somewhat reducing the chances of a recurrence that could lead to an early death. ...
    (misc.health.alternative)
  • Re: Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good? (BusinessWeek cover story)
    ... Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good? ... Research suggests that, except among high-risk heart patients, the ... Martin Winn's cholesterol level was inching up. ... Statins certainly performed as they should ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Statins: benefit confined to high risk
    ... "The benefit is really confined to people at high risk. ... A cry from the heart ... Cholesterol-busting statins were hailed as modern wonder drugs. ... Institutes of Health and the National Cholesterol Education Program ...
    (sci.med)