The Diseases of Prosperity.

Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease are the major causes of our modern day demise, usually before our time. They are wreaking havoc with our health, and eating up vast resources within all Health care and the NHS. They are largely preventable, but successive Governments have had neither the will, nor desire to do anything about it, having become pawns in the games played by the industrial conglomerates that constitute drugs manufacturing and food production, to maximise their 'bottom line'. Diabetes Mellitus type 2 is reaching epidemic proportions and is costing huge sums, within the NHS, for both treatment and so called prevention, but the protocols for both are founded in a mire of obfuscation, junk science and vested interests.

Non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus is an endocrine disorder which involves the pancreas, or more importantly the 'islets of langerhans'; the beta cells that secrete the hormone insulin. In addition a common factor especially in the early stages is Insulin resistance. This is caused by the muscles and other cells, inability to take up the glucose circulating in the bloodstream, leaving it at high levels; this is hyperglycemia. Interventions by drugs and insulin is the way medicine then acts, to reduce this dangerous excess. But this is often counterproductive, as it exacerbates the problem of the insulin resistance, and pushes an already exhausted pancreas to secrete more and more insulin until it dies completely under the load imposed upon it. At that stage, insulin injections become mandatory and these are potentially life threatening and almost always cause obesity to increase, or appear, if it has not already begun.

To enable a more proactive approach to the prevention, detection and treatment of diabetes, a number of 'sacred cows' need to be taken out of the equation, preferably round the back of the surgery, and administered a fatal shot to the brain. Perhaps along with some of the physicians that promote these drugs and protocols. These are;-
 

• Low fat, high carbohydrate diets.

• Exercise, but with little direction as to what or when.

• Various hypoglycemic agents that have some serious side effects.

• A culture that offers a chemical fix instead of a lifestyle changes

With this initial nutritional advice, to consume low fat, high carbohydrate diets we come up against the pig headed views, about the fat-diet-heart hypothesis that have dominated dietary advice for the last thirty years. It takes no account, of numerous studies that have thrown this into the long grass, where it belongs, and I cannot see why it still prevails, as even some mainstream medics are beginning to cast doubt on it's veracity. When even simple biochemistry dictates, that any starch intake is going to be converted to glucose almost instantly in some foods, it is obvious that blood levels are going to rise with it's consumption, which will then require that level to lowered. The only conventional way for a diabetic to achieve normoglycemia from this position is to take something to lower the level and/or burn it off by exercise. Why in the name of Hippocrates would you suggest that you take a 'poison', merely so you can take the antidote ? Far better, I say not to take the damn stuff in the first place, surely ?


Exercise, is always advocated by all in Health care for, well, virtually everything. But it does little at all to reduce obesity of itself. OK it will help a little to keep you healthy, but obesity tends to make exercise an effort, so tends to go on the back burner for most. It can and does burn off excess glucose in diabetics, but has to be carefully targeted to do this at times, postprandial, that will have the maximum effect, but it will do little to reduce weight in any meaningful way. In the last few days it has been widely reported in the media that childhood obesity is not caused by lack of exercise, as reported by this study, from the Peninsular Medical School in Plymouth. Read it here , it explodes a few myths.


Hypoglycemic agents are oral drugs, generally that lower glucose absorption, increase it's disposal by the liver, help to lower insulin resistance or pressurise the pancreas to produce more insulin. They have significant and often unpleasant side effects, and whilst I would not entirely rule them out, I would always advise extreme caution in their use. With the possible exception of Metformin, they often invoke hypoglycemia, which can be more dangerous than too much blood glucose, and they almost always promote weight gain. Once you are prescribed these drugs the condition almost always worsens, and more and more are prescribed until insulin injections are needed because you will no longer have any functional beta cells. 


These chemical 'fixes' are there because you will never be told to eliminate as much as possible the source of all that glucose, carbohydrates, that is largely causing the condition. It is not politically correct to consume fats, especially saturated animal fats, and proteins should only be consumed in relatively small volumes, so the bulk of the diet advised is carbohydrates, of up to 66% of intake, if you include the insane notion, of fruit and vegetables not being carbohydrates, which they largely are. So, with the connivance of the medical profession you are told to eat carbs in abundance, even some sugars (!) because the drugs you are being given will take care of the problem. You will also be told that eating fats will make you fat, except of course the awful man made vegetable types; monounsaturated and polyunsaturates, (and I do advocate some intake of the latter, in the form of  Omega 3's), margarine with plant sterols, are in fact in that group. These are alleged to assist in cholesterol lowering, which you will also be told is an essential of diabetic protocols (see last post). The simple truth is that saturated fat has no insulin reaction whatsoever in it's metabolism in the human so it cannot make you fat. It will in fact help to make you thin as well as providing a food stuff you will satiate your craving for sustenance, which is a side effect of insulin resistance.


So even if you are a diabetic, even on insulin, you will benefit from the 'primitive' or 'paleolithic' diet we were eating only some ten thousand years ago. 'A blink of the eye' in evolutionary terms. Man, especially those hunter gatherer types, northern in origin, which people the USA and Europe are poorly adapted to the absorption of nutrients from grains and other carbohydrates, and as a consequence, much of that which we eat in this food group, increases our likelihood of becoming diabetic and largely is stored as fat. Abdominal fat increases our chance further of becoming diabetic and obese. Worse, the huge consumption of sugars both sucrose, which has risen from 3kgs per person in 1900, to 75kgs per person today, and more importantly, in the past few years, fructose, is complicit in this phenomena of increase in both risk and consequence.


By failing to take account of these factors, in the dietary advice given to all diabetics, by current mainstream dietitian's, nutritionists and most doctors, a considerable disservice has been perpetrated upon diabetics. By, adding to the burden of drug protocols, the need to lower all lipoproteins, and blood pressure often when these are in the normal or low risk levels; the health and well being of the diabetic is often further compromised. Often, this is founded in dogma and poorly researched science, typical of preventative measures advocacy that much of health care interventions is steeped in today. These are '5-a day'; statins lower CVD risk ( in otherwise healthy people); a (so called) cholesterol level of 4.0 mmol/L is dangerous; eating saturated fat increases CVD risk, etc,etc. These are all hypotheses that are unproven or worst proven as being untrue. The vast sums we have literally 'thrown' into these protocols and the 'bribes' given to Doctors to both advocate and invoke them is a scandal of enormous proportions. It is patently not working and we are are on the brink of an epidemic of diabetes and obesity in society, that is going to eat up more and more of our precious resources, with prospect of 4.2 million diabetics by 2025, as opposed to approximately 2.5 million today (Diabetes UK figures). 

We are now faced with the prospect of GP Commissioning of all Primary care in the UK, which will include diabetes care. If this comes to pass, for which there is some inevitability, GP's will be given the budget for this area, with perhaps even more of the same outmoded beliefs and treatments inevitable. As most, if not all GP's are contractors, it will place them in the difficult position, for the patient that is, of being both the purchaser and provider of services. The situation not of 'poacher turned gamekeeper', but of them being one and the same simultaneously. That is not a scenario that bodes well for patients, and is likely to make for even more corruption of care than is currently the case. There is already vested interests at play both in the National bodies that oversee diabetic care and in those that treat us for it. To allow even more to be invoked is likely to make it worse, not better. The diabetic will once more be a pawn of those interests, with the  prospect of large private 'for profit' entities bidding for their care, with their outcomes likely to suffer as a result. And society's spiral towards diabetic overload likely to result.

Ken Coates RIP

In a pause from normal business, I was shocked and saddened by the news of Ken Coates death. Never quite a friend, but a close acquaintance from the days when he worked on Prof Daniels roses, way back in my teens. To the days when he was head of the Bertrand Russel Peace Foundation in the 70's and I was in concert with both his views and protests. I used to help out there in a few ways then and always viewed him as a slightly distant mentor.

Prolific and accomplished author, he remained an unashamed rebel probably to the end of his days. I will remember him at the height of his powers, although he was always hampered by his partial deafness, which may have been the result of his mining days. Principled as he was he refused, to join the army and spent some years at the coalface instead. He was diabetic, which I did not know at the time, only years later.

Like many I have known, I lost touch with him and the Foundation some years ago as I was reincarnated once more into a different world that survival dictated, but I always remembered him with admiration and respect. It breaks one more of the bonds to that time in the 70's when we had it all, almost, and it trickled through our fingers, like sand. We should have listened to Ken, we might not have had to put up with the Blair years if we had, well maybe.

Farewell then Ken, I will break a glass for you. May you live in the hearts of those you leave behind.
His Guardian Obituary is here, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jun/29/ken-coates-obituary

                                        

It's Those Statins Again !

Seem to write a lot about these, but there are a lot of them ! This study shows that their use is, well, pants !

A new meta analysis, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine today and given some prominence in both Pulse and SearchMedica, highlights the fact that there is no evidence that statin therapy has any effect on all cause mortality, even in high risk categories of patients, without a history of CVD. Makes you feel like saying 'told you so'. Some even advocate we give them to children! I kid you not !

With more than 65,000 participants and spanning some 39 years, I find this pretty conclusive evidence, to stop spending our money on pointless, expensive, and potentially harmful treatment protocols, for relatively healthy people, who fall the wrong side of a line drawn, by the very architects of the drug used to treat those who do. And of course, the line moves, in concert, with the never ending greed of 'Big Pharma'.

The jury is still out, on the use of statin's in patients presenting with existing CHD/CVD, although, even that has pretty flimsy evidence in it's favour, to say the least. But, it is without doubt a useless protocol, for those who do not have heart disease already, but are classed as 'at risk'. Probably by gist of one of the several 'risk engines' available in health care that predict that likelihood, but again, are notoriously poor at doing so, with any degree of accuracy ( The Framingham Index  being one). The elderly, hypertensives, and diabetics are generally those targeted, to their detriment and that of their future health. I personally have talked to women, put on statin's, because their overall cholesterol level was above 4.0 mmol/L ! Is there a conspiracy in the GP cohort to enrich 'Big Pharma' ? Because  that sort of prescribing is profligate, and is bordering on dangerous !

But, so long as NICE keep churning out the guidelines, that allow it, and provide financial incentives for those that prescribe, then Doctors will keep writing the the scrips, doing the lipids profiles, and telling us all we need to get our cholesterol down to an insanely dangerous low level. Of course it isn't even cholesterol it's simply it's transport molecule level, i.e. the total lipoprotein level in the blood, about which they generally know bugger all !

In these austere times, when money for health care is under pressure, it seems stupid to continue this pointless exercise, for the enrichment of the pharmaceutical giants, and give incentive awards to Doctors to medicate patients, that do not need to be treated, except in the la, la land of Quality Outcome Frameworks. These are set, in the misguided belief, that interventions of this type, will make us all more healthy and save the NHS money in the future. In fact this group, despite the (often) cocktail of drugs they are taking, present to hard pressed A&E, just as frequently with CHD/CVD, as those who do not. Of course it isn't just the Doctors time, and the drugs cost, it's the test protocols that also become necessary, at regular cycles to ensure that these so called 'benign' drugs are not destroying liver, kidneys or other organs of the recipient, or worse, precipitating the very thing they are alleged to prevent; heart failure. It seems ironic that the drug used to prevent Coronary Heart Disease, can of, and in itself, bring about muscle wastage to the extent that heart failure ensues.

In diabetics, there are 17 Quality Outcome Frameworks to structure their lifestyle, and lipid modification even if their (so called) cholesterol is near normal will likely be invoked, condemning them to a lifetime of statin therapy. This will be in addition to other protocols, involving blood pressure lowering medication, again even if their BP is normal and various interventions to keep their blood sugar within guideline levels. DM23 for instance, which has now been proven as being too stringent and putting Type 2's at risk, being just one, is being reviewed in the light of evidence that it is dangerous. All because, I believe mainstream medicine will not review it's strategy of low fat diets instead of low carbohydrate diets for diabetics. Doh !

The cost of the tests, drugs and Doctor time for the 5 million people the NHS suggest needs these drugs (statin's that is). Well, we do not quite know, but the drugs alone come to a £billion, the tests probably another at least, and that does not include Doctor time, the bonus paid for achieving the QOF, or the huge cost to the patients who have suffered from the many adverse outcomes, even death, from the use of statin's. I think that £3 billion would be a fairly accurate estimate. You could re-open a few wards with that sort of money, or even train a few Doctors (perhaps even properly, so they know what they are doing).

'Primum non nocere', is perhaps something those who advocate these drugs, should remember.

 Next up, diabetics (type 2 that is).

Football, Finance and the NHS

It was all pretty abysmal. A group of highly paid professionals, headed by a £6million a year manager attempting to achieve what has not been done since, well, who can remember ?

As everything else in the this benighted land, we keep doing the same thing, over and over again with the same blind faith, that it might be different, this time. But it never is ! The finances of football, finance itself, and most of our state institutions, which now includes the bulk of our Banks, stumble on, now under the tutelage of the Lib-Con's (an apt naming, I think). As we are now "all in this together", it is expected that our input to Cameron's dream of a responsible society, will render us complicit in the in the vast swage of cuts and austerity that will now be my retirement birthright.

Like the FA, and all the Premiershits (to steal an acronym from 'Private Eye'), the country has been in the grip of politicians who have wedded themselves to various organisations, hell bent on feathering their own nest at the expense of us, the taxpayer, the football fan, the service user. We have been used as the money pit for the New Labour experiment, Thatcherism, Blair and Majors, personal agenda of sacrificing British lives in far flung places at the behest of Presidents called Bush, and the wonder of PFI and Independent Sector Treatment Centres. And that's the short list !

Under the sainted Margaret, we endured the 'privatisation' of services such as parts of the NHS, all of the Railways, Buses and some of the Prisons. Blair then assumed the mantle with a relish unexpected of a 'social democrat', and went even further with ID cards, parts of the Immigration Service, the fiasco of the NHS IT system, then the UK Border Agency. The only profit seen from this has been the vast sums paid to the large Accountants, Management Consultants and the now privatised Service Providers to the infrastructure of the UK. The Consultants, the Facilities Managers and unbelievably, the bodyguards for civil servants, senior soldiers and politicians in War zones reaped vast rewards. Despite the fact, that we have more than enough men with guns, in the pay of the state (and I should know), we have to pay a whole lot more 'mercenaries' (sic), to protect people and even convoys in foreign climes. We in fact, as a populace, seem to pay at least twice or more times for almost everything that politicians commit us to finance. Or we pay considerably more, than that which should be the 'going rate', for so much, such as ships, tanks, aircraft, firearms, IT services, computer software and so on, and on, and........

As for Medicine and Health care; we allow the private sector to cherry pick the easy bits, that is if anything can be called such,if you are a patient. ISTC's have had contracts to perform routine procedures and treatments at inflated prices which, then they did not undertake even though the bill had been paid. Partly due to administrative incompetence of the PCT's and others who commissioned the work in the first place and because these centres then failed in the delivery of those tasks or worse, they bodged the job and the NHS then had to put it right. Worse still, these' medicine factories' actually killed people sent to them and the NHS paid the damages to the bereft relatives.

Doctors who operate in the NHS as small businessmen (and women), have fared pretty well from the taxpayer as well. We have paid them handsomely to undertake 'so called' preventative measures, by monitoring patients for diabetes, heart attacks and strokes, hypertension, and then invoking protocols usually requiring drug interventions to modify the findings of any tests. Payments are made, usually based on the results achieved. But, these results have been shown not to be sufficiently productive as to keep said patients out of A&E when their symptoms exacerbate. Not really value for money then ? Treating symptoms is not the way to cut health costs as we all probably know but that is what we get. So the system eats money, and patients get sicker. Non insulin dependent diabetes sufferers become insulin dependent, non insulin diabetics ! What a misnomer and what a travesty ! Lets keep telling them to do the wrong things such as eating a balanced diet of one third carbohydrates which acerbates their condition by raising their blood glucose and pressurises the pancreas to secrete more insulin, which then further exhausts it, makes them fat which in turn increases insulin resistance. So lets just keep doing the same, and by some miracle it will all work out !

The Bankers (or should that be a W?) have the politicians in their pocket, because they ultimately control the system that provides the finance for everything, despite the vast sums we gave them. Politicians always want the blessing of International Finance so they will give them the austerity package they want. Once they have reached a certain level of remuneration it will not substantially effect any of their lifestyles and there will be little in the way of retribution for the Sir Humphrey's of this world, for forgoing a few notional perks to give the people the impression they 'are in this with us all'. All the International Accountants that are relied upon by politicians will now make money out of studies they will undertake to see where savings in the cost of the state can be made, despite the fact that they were complicit in the lack of any due diligence in the Banking fiasco, we are all now paying for.

The FA will no doubt find themselves a new England manager, probably at even more money, to preside over the bunch of over paid, uninspired Premier League players we have in any team, and we will wave the flag for them at the next International tournament with hope in our hearts but despair in our souls. The words 'we was robbed' springs to our lips but has a greater connotation than would normally be the case. Successive Governments have used us for their own ends, and those of their friends for most of my life time. We have been pawns in various social experiments for decades of succeeding Governments, footing the bill in the belief that this time it will be different. That the LibCon's will be the catalyst for a change from this is a pretty forlorn hope. That we will pay for it is a certainty.

Kinky Fats

NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence -don't ask where the H went) today published it's report on fat. Jane Draper BBC Health Correspondent  has written it about at some length, but both she and NICE, seemed to have missed some of the point and dressed up the issue of Cardiovascular disease prevention as a bit of a 'trojan horse'; the policy of hiding the bad stuff in the good.

In the haste to condemn these products (trans isomer fatty acids) they have lumped them together with saturated fats to the detriment of the report and to health care in general. Science has once more been used as a political ploy to demonise fat as being very bad for all and flies in the face of all the evidence accrued over many years. And, once more, promote a diet high in carbohydrates on the 'eat well' plate of the sister Government propaganda machine, The Food Standards Agency. I have provided a picture of the two unsaturated fat types available. The one with the trans bond is the 'evil' one. The cis bond is the 'good' one, well, up to a point.  And yes we're treated like children again; good and bad used as some sort of scientific term when it isn't.

All of these fats do occur naturally, however trans bonds are generally man made. To enable oils to be used as fats they are partially hydrogenated; that is hydrogen is fired at the molecule to create a structure with a hydrogen atom either side of a double carbon bond (see above). There are none of these naturally occurring, although some forms of trans fats do, they are very small in number or volume, in the food chain of man. These man made fats are there to enable oils to be solid to some degree or other, to prevent them becoming 'rancid', to aid in cooking and to enable storage without refrigeration. They are of course cheaper than butter, which figures quite highly so far as the food industry is concerned and of course they can be said not to be 'saturated', which these days is a big selling point although wrong.

Trans fats are now universally believed, even by me, to be harmful to humans. The very fact that they are generally not natural, should ring alarm bell's in mans diet. But more, they have been associated with most of the diseases that we have been afflicted with, in the last 50 years, such as cardiovascular disease, kidney and liver disease and the inevitable diabetes. What has not been established however, although universally accepted, erroneously I would add, is that saturated fats have any link to any of these ailments. So by linking trans fats to these 'good' fats (bugger, I'm doing it now) terrible dangers lurk.

Saturated fats are naturally occurring. They are the fat on most meats although quite a large number of the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats also occur in these (Omega 3's for one). They are lard, dripping or tallow, which was the cooking medium in use until science enabled man to 'tinker' with nature and invent foods that fulfill the almost universal goal of the food industry to make something that looks good, tastes alright but is most of all cheap. And of course there is  butter and its derivatives such as ghee. Until we started to modify or redesign the molecular structure of oils, we were on the whole, quite healthy. Heart disease and Diabetes did not figure highly on the list of  ills that befell humankind. Humans lived for a surprisingly long time, so long as we did not fall to the bacterial and viral diseases such as diphtheria or polio or the plague. Look around a Victorian graveyard and you will see that many lived into their ninety's, or sadly died before the age of five.That we are living longer today is really a bit of an urban myth. Most who actually survived early childhood lived on average as long if not longer than us. So we have increased in number, to push up the averages not increased our longevity

The image shows the difference between the two types and you will see the reason for the title. Unsaturated has a 'kink' where the double bond occurs. The bottom one is that wonder of science, incidentally, Omega 3. It has a cis not a trans bond.  If you boost your intake of this particular one you could live for ever, or so the health lobby tells us. I tend to agree, but not without some reservation.  But, I also would say that grass fed organic meat, is almost as high in PUFA's as is salmon or other oily fish, except of course if it's farmed when it's less. But NICE do not suggest banning that source, any more than they advocate, in this latest misinformed missive, the banning of high fructose corn syrup (which they should), another man made product as dangerous as trans fats but more universally utilised, in the soft drinks industry,  when sucrose was previously (common sugar).

The essence is, that they suggest a reduction in trans fats and saturated fats, such as butter, cream, cheese etc,  by the imposition of tax on these products in the form of VAT (probably). Probably also, some sort of tax on 'fast food', to curb its consumption. The former would decimate the already faltering dairy farmers, especially the organic one's whose cows yield products high in butterfat and form the backbone of what I believe is a healthy diet, and the latter would hit the poorer members of society, who eat an unhealthy diet with large quantities of the rubbish peddled by the likes of companies with Scottish names or with a military ring. Far better to educate than regiment, has always been my view, but NICE and governments of all parties cannot cease to impose rather than cajole, so we tend to end up with the worst policies usually founded in bad or out of date science. They are still telling us to eat '5 a day', lower our saturated fat consumption and have a third of our nutrition from carbohydrates; all policies that have been shown to be worthless or even dangerous.

I quote from renowned Cardiologist, E H Ahrens Jnr, who did support low fat diets at one time but changed his mind; " If the publics diet is going to be decided by popularity polls and with diminishing regard for the scientific evidence, I fear that future generations will be left in ignorance of the real merits, as well as possible faults in any dietary regimen aimed at the prevention of coronary heart disease".

If we are to believe NICE, who allege to be an evidence based advisory and research body, then what is that evidence that links heart disease to saturated fat intake? Simply there is none really, there is largely however the absence of proof. In the presence an unproven hypothesis, rebuttal should sound it's death knell, but in the fat-diet-heart hypothesis, which has been denied any proof of it's existence in many huge and expensive studies since 1948, it suits its defenders to keep trotting out the same unproven drivel over and over again. I could list these endlessly but Mary Enig has succinctly achieved it better than I. One study does stand out though. That of Framingham; the longest in the history of the world. In more than 60 years no link has been found at all, between saturated fat consumption and CVD, despite many efforts to find one. I repeat none.

Even better, fat consumption actually helps to make you thin, as well as enabling the better absorption of fat soluble vitamins and minerals, essential for health. Reduction in our dietary intake,  in the last thirty years has done nothing to achieve the goal of it's propounders, in fact the converse is true. There is in fact, considerable evidence that omission from our diet of saturated fats has gone some way toward increasing levels of obesity, strokes and diabetes. You will notice that I do not include CHD or CVD because these have consistently fallen since the end of rationing in this country. So where they get the figure of 40,000 possible lives saved per year if we eliminate both (they do not attribute numbers to each class of fats), I know not.

Lastly we should look at the 'paradox's'. France is always the top of the list with Switzerland a close second. In these countries saturated fat consumption is the highest and yet despite many parallels with the UK such as blood pressure, exercise, serum cholesterol etc., France has the lowest incidence of CVD in Europe, even though as a percentage of calories they consume over 15% as saturated fats. Does this not tell you something? NICE needs to do the maths. An even better exposition is by Gary Taubes. It's worth a read.

The Most Expensive Confidence Trick in Healthcare

Yes it is!  Statin's are precisely that; a confidence trick.  HMG- CoA reductase inhibitors, to give them their correct title, are probably the most prescribed drug in the history of the world, accounting for $25 billion last year, in the US alone. Making 'Big Pharma' the eye watering profit machine it had always wanted to be, creating a profit stream more lucrative than any other drug protocol in use in the Western World. And yet it is pointless, expensive and does almost nothing in terms of its goal, of achieving lower rates of CHD/CVD in mankind and absolutely nothing at all for womankind.

Lipid lowering as it is termed often, is the manipulation of the liver's output of lipoproteins to fulfil the dubious hypothesis that reducing cholesterol in the body will safeguard you from a heart attack. It has been 'trashed' many times since its inception in the 1980's by significant scientific evidence, but the myth still prevails despite all of this. Many renowned scientists and doctors, some represented by the  Cholesterol Skeptics argue that it's bunk. It is, without a shadow of doubt.

Across the many studies undertaken over quite some years, since the synthesis by Merck of red yeast rice to lovastatin, it is likely that most people taking a statin, who are in the 'high risk category' for heart disease will, live on average two months longer, in thirty years, than if they didn't (take a statin that is). If you were not at 'risk' ie: did not have a pre-existing heart problem, statistically you would not live a day longer. If you are a woman, even with a heart condition, you would benefit by living not one day longer.  But your risks of death from other causes would be increased. Why one might ask?

They can cause rhabdomyolysis which can be fatal.(Quite rare)

They cause polyneuropathy, memory loss, depression, confusion, impotence, and major birth defects.

They cause muscle weakness, and pain in 20% of people taking them.

Although not proven (yet) it is alleged they cause heart failure and may increase the risk of cancer.

Chris Cresser who is the Healthy Skeptic has recorded this for your information and advice. He's not going to take any statin's that's for sure.

In this country as in most of the West, we seem to have been taken in by the weight of 'Big Pharma's' publicity machine. Worse, doctors and scientists, who really should know better, have as well. They should read the full studies when looking for evidence, not just the abstract, because said 'Big Pharma' is often guilty of tacit concealment of adverse results by burying them in a vast database of facts.

One thing is fairly certain; statin's deplete the bodies stores of CoQ10, which is an essential for healthy cells. So important in fact that there was plan by Merck to incorporate it into a statin pill in 1990, to offset this depletion. In the end they did not, as combination pills are difficult to get by even the usually 'revolving door' of the FDA (well that's my assumption). However, the very fact they bothered to design such a drug, goes some way towards giving legs to this view. That the highest levels of CoQ10 are found in muscle and other cells with high energy demands, like the heart, does beg the question that lowering the level of this ubiquitous substance (it's name is Ubiquinone because of its presence in all cells) will stop ATP production, conversion of which to ADP, is the basis of energy release at cellular level. As it is derived from the same initial steps as cholesterol,  Acetyl CoA, in the bio synthesis of cholesterol, it is not rocket science to take the view that it will be lost in the reduction of the liver's capabilities of cholesterol production, by the use of statins.

I realise that the forgoing is of itself a bit technical, but I have tried to make this accessible by gist of simple language. The 'mystification' of science and medicine in particular, is not something to which I subscribe. We all have to take control of our destiny, in this life. Nothing, sadly is as it seems, especially in Health care and the NHS. We all have to make up our own minds. Hypertension is rife in our society, for men, especially over 50. And yet, it is readily cured by lifestyle changes. But, like statin therapy, the doctors could not turn a dollar (pound) if we adopted this as the strategy, to cure the problem. So, drugs were invented to ameliorate its symptoms but not to cure it. There's no money in curing, for 'Big Pharma', or for doctors, with QOF's (quality outcome frameworks) to fulfill.

There is, sadly, money in everything in the NHS and Medicine. The patient is just the pawn in an elaborate game of chess, with taxpayer gold as the prize. Politicians buy into it, because it's expedient. The public accept it, because their minds are full of short term 'proxy' fulfillment of fantasies about Football and Celebrity. It's not until something adverse impinges upon their lives, that they realise the huge sums we are spending on keeping the NHS afloat are being used for the profligate lifestyles of Consultants and Managers who profit from our ignorance.

I will explain soon how the treatment of Diabetics is one of despair, that again profits Medicine and 'Big Pharma' at the expense of patient outcomes.

FDA approves drug for the annoyingly cheerful

 Before I launch myself into the exposition of the unmitigated confidence trick of Cholesterol and Statins I thought I'd share this with you from Chris.

It's priceless and for the Americans amongst us, it's not true just ironically funny.



FDA approves drug for the annoyingly cheerful