Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of charge so that customers can neutralize the heart disease dangers of fatty food, according to a new study highlighted by ANH–International. Burgers, fries, and dangerous drugs from your drive-through!
Researchers at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London suggest in a new study that “since statins reduce the amount of unhealthy LDL cholesterol in the blood, the reduction in cardiovascular risk offered by a statin drug is enough to offset the increase in heart attack risk from eating a cheeseburger and a milkshake.”
Dr. Darrell Francis, the senior author of the study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Cardiology, said explicitly, “It makes sense to make risk-reducing supplements available just as easily as the unhealthy condiments that are provided free of charge. It would cost less than [a packet] of ketchup.”
Many other researchers, however, disagree with the assertion that statins are either effective or safe. A recent University of Cambridge meta-analysis also highlighted by ANH–Intl seriously calls into question the use of statin therapy for those with no history of cardiovascular disease. Moreover, the International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics, a prestigious group of mainstream doctors and scientists, believe the statin push is all about money and not science. To quote Dr. John Abramson of Harvard: “We [the medical profession] medicalize symptoms in order to market medications.”
Distinguished medical and nutritional researcher Dr. Harry Preuss of Georgetown University (an ANH-USA board member) agrees: “We need a major symposium of experts to address this subject. Millions of Americans could be receiving more harm than benefit from statins. Recent trials have shown results that were less positive than expected. So why the positive results earlier?”
It should be noted that government and the pharmaceutical industry are working closely together here. NIH’s National Cholesterol Education Program publishes guidelines on cholesterol. Its member organizations sponsor expert panels to make recommendations, which are then distributed to physicians, laboratories, etc. The more it tells the American public to lower cholesterol numbers, the higher the profits for cholesterol drugs—at the expense of Americans’ health.
Pulse readers will recall our July 13 Action Alert about the possibility of children being given a new, chewable form of the cholesterol drug Lipitor. Now medical researchers are suggesting dispensing statin drugs with fast food meals, heedless of the documented side effects of such drugs: nerve damage, muscle damage and pain, potential heart damage (the heart is a muscle, too, and this is quite separate from the potential heart damage caused by depletion of CoQ10, which statins also create), liver enzyme derangement, blood glucose elevation, tendon problems, anemia, acidosis, cataracts, sexual dysfunction, and in some cases even kidney failure.
And of course we are not even including the documented health risks of cholesterol that is too low, including stroke, depression, and shorter life. We have to remember that we all need cholesterol. Among other functions, it is an essential building block for hormones.
Statin drugs are not necessary. A randomized–controlled trial found that a natural supplement, red yeast rice, had significant cholesterol-lowering properties. Other supplements such as niacin also have proven benefit.
And—here’s a radical suggestion—perhaps Americans should just stop eating the fast food burgers and milk shakes in the first place? The Harvard Nurses’ Study documented the fact that a change in diet and physical activity will reduce incidence of heart disease by 83%—with a reduction of the risk of diabetes up to 90%, and a lowered risk of obesity, which is linked to inflammation.
But that would make too much sense. Then neither the big drug companies nor the big fast food industry would make the big money.
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I use Niamax for my problems with LDL and the rest of heart blood chemistry and it has worked wonders, no statin has given me the results. If you want the brand name I can tell you. I am a Type I Diabetic for 25 years and no problems, thanks to my desire to combat the disease.
Cholestrol is a protector–US people eat to much calcium and that clogs the arteries unless eaten together with vitimin D. Have a friend that just went on calcium twice per day and clogged his arteries and almost ruined his heart–now has 11 stints. Older people’s cholestrol usually goes up to protect their body. Statins kill your muscles–once they are gone your bones are next.
I agree- people should stop eating fast food period. If people would follow a whole food, minimally processed and organic diet, there would be a huge reduction in health problems.
whoa now suzanne those are scary words for the majority of the american public. god forbid you improve your own health without drug company drugs
This worries me. My concern is that people will become complacent, relying strictly on what fast food places “dispense” to lower cholesterol and improve their health. What they should be doing instead is eating healthy, exercising more, stop watching so much TV and playing so many video games.
As my mom would say – get up off your duff!
This is really funny!….as dumb as most people are….I think this move would still scare more of them away from fast food…but who knows?…
This is another plot by the drug companies to make more money! Duh!
The problem is not even the fats in food. Sugar is bad for you, yeah, but the fats won’t hurt you if your thyroid function is good.
The problem is that doctors don’t understand thyroid function and aren’t diagnosing it due to the misinformation being spread by drug companies who want to sell lots of cholesterol medication and can’t do it if your thyroid is functioning properly!
If you have high cholesterol, you HAVE low thyroid function and a natural desiccated thyroid product like Armor Thyroid, Naturethroid or West Throid will fix it if properly administered! A T4 product like Synthroid probably won’t. But if you take NDT, they won’t be able to make all the money on statins!
The American medical establishment needs to be run for the welfare of patients, not the drug companies!
I am totally against encouraging anyone to think that the bad effects of a food can be reversed by a drug which carries tremendous side effects. Our public and our children need to ber taught that actions carry consequences-not the reverse. Taking responsibility for wellness does not depend on a drug company.
they should give out free CoQ10 pills instead…..
God help us.
This is not surprising…it’s how consumers are being trained to think… a pill will cure all your ills… just look at all the commercials for protein pump inhibitors (nexium, prilosec…..) It shows a person eating some big portion of food, frowning and then rubbing their chest from indigestion….. then it shows that person taking the “purple pill” and then cuts to a scene in some mexican restaurant, the person is eating another big plate of spicy food but this time their smiling………. tries to sell the pill as a fix so you can eat what you want………. people take PPIs for years and never change their diets or lifestyles…… why should they when they can just pop a pill? So why not with fast food and a statin? Pretty soon they’ll talk about adding statins to the food itself…….. “I’ll have a double cheese bacon statin burger please”……………. we have to change how people think about medicine/health……. our current approach is to patch it up when we should be focusing on prevention.