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191027

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Read “The Night Journey” by Rupert Brooke.

The Effect of Statins on Average Survival in Randomised Trials, An Analysis of End Point Postponement

The benefit of preventive drugs such as statins is often quantified as the “number needed to treat,” or NNT, which reflects the number of subjects who would need to be given a drug for one negative clinical event to be prevented. For example, if the NNT for a statin preventing cardiovascular death is 40, it suggests that for every 40 patients given a statin, one cardiovascular death will be prevented. This number, however, distorts the likely reality of the benefit distribution by suggesting a single subject receives the entire benefit while other subjects receive no benefit. This 2014 review aimed to quantify the clinical impact of statins differently, assessing the mean extension of life due to statin treatment. The analysis found the median benefit associated with statin use was 3.2 days in primary prevention and 4.1 days in secondary prevention. In other words, statins extended life expectancy by less than a week. Separate research suggests if the benefits of statins were explained this way, the majority of subjects would not choose to take them.

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Do statins really work? Who benefits? Who has the power to cover up the side effects?

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In September 2019, "The Chair of the British Parliament Science and Technology Committee, Sir Norman Lamb MP made calls for a full investigation into cholesterol lowering statin drugs. It was instigated after a letter was written to him signed by a number of eminent international doctors including the editor of the BMJ, the Past President of the Royal College of Physicians and the Director of the Centre of Evidence Based Medicine in Brazil wrote a letter calling for a full parliamentary inquiry into the controversial medication. Here, lead author Cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra makes the case for [why] there’s an urgent need for such an investigation."

Read the articleDo statins really work? Who benefits? Who has the power to cover up the side effects?

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Tyler Hass
October 28th, 2019 at 8:45 pm
Commented on: Do statins really work? Who benefits? Who has the power to cover up the side effects?
This article is very readable and covers a lot of important material. A few of my favorite points below:

“Cardiologist and Editor in chief of JAMA internal medicine, Professor Rita Redberg pertinently points out “ cholesterol is just a lab number, who cares about lowering cholesterol unless it actually translates into a benefit for patients?”
-Seriously! Is the point of medicine to prop up vanity metrics or make people healthier? One big problem I see is that the medical community lacks a definition of “health” that’s as clear and measurable as CrossFit’s definition of “fitness”. Lifespan is a meager proxy for health and Big Pharma can’t even aim for that.

“If you strip down the statin trials to their moving parts, the data actually reveals that, even in those who have established heart disease, the benefits are very small. Even in this high risk group, the average increase in life expectancy from taking the drug religiously for five years is a meagre four days.”
-An extra 4 days of old age doesn’t seem like a fair trade for 5 years of muscle pain, memory loss and a limp…

“Eminent French Cardiologist Professor Michel De-Lorgeril, points out that since more stringent regulations on reporting of clinical trials were introduced in 2006 only one statin, Rosuvastatin, has been tested in clinical trials. It demonstrated no benefit at all in four trials, and these included a significant number of patients with established heart disease.”
-So, when Big Pharma can no longer fudge the numbers, the benefits disappear? This is “the Mess” CrossFit Health has been exposing over the past year.
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David Whiteside
October 28th, 2019 at 1:48 pm
Commented on: Do statins really work? Who benefits? Who has the power to cover up the side effects?
This article, written by a medical professional, should be required reading by age 21 for everyone, worldwide. All the ingredients to begin liberation from the government-pharmaceutical axis are present: the hidden, predatory culture of drug companies, complicit scientists and regulators, and possibly the biggest of the nutritional "cons" perpetrated since the early 20th century: the lack of science behind the demonization of saturated fat. Against the background of the overwhelming misinformation campaign behind statins, Dr. Malhotra succinctly indicts  the increasingly scurrilous profession of "nutritional science" along with big pharma. Share with all your friends.
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Steven Hunter
October 27th, 2019 at 3:03 am
Commented on: 191027
It seems like he is concerned with existentialism and maybe the first stages of depression.
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