28, February 2008 Cholesterol
Lowering Drugs (Statins)
Our airwaves, print media and medical doctors are
constantly bombarding us with the need to aggressively lower blood cholesterol.
While there can be no doubt of the wisdom of healthy eating and exercise to
achieve these goals what seems to be suspect is the increasing pressure from
pharmaceutical companies to establish new lower targets which are virtually
impossible to achieve through diet alone. Thus, more and more people are taking
cholesterol lowering drugs (CLD’s or statins). It would be interesting to
follow the money trail of studies claiming such benefits. Remember how Vioxx
was touted as the miracle ‘one pill a day’ arthritis drug? The drug was
eventually withdrawn after patients experienced serious adverse events, a fact
the company withheld from the public, profits taking precedence over safety
concerns. Women, were similarly advised to take estrogen only to learn many
years later of serious side effects.
Focus, Harvard’s news bulletin, reported pioneering
research conducted on muscle weakness caused by CLD’s. They discovered a gene
called atrogen-1 which causes a breakdown of proteins in muscle tissue. The
Harvard bulletin reported the personal experience of one of its own doctors,
Dr. Ikas Sukhatme, who experienced severe muscle weakness after taking a
statin. It took nine months for Dr. Sukhatme to recover. Dr. Jim Wright,
director of a British Colombia drug watchdog group commented that CLD’s may be
doing more harm than good.
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