Almost everyone who took statins suffered not one but multiple side-effects
“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.”— Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit
Statins are the most sold, most talked about, yet, the most dangerous chemicals, used in Western medical therapeutics only to get a ‘better’ lipid profile report of hapless, unsuspecting humans—dubbed as patients—, because they have lots of patience to bear with all the physical insults that we inflict on them.
Medical students are now taught that statins are the best bet to get a patient’s lipid profile back to ‘normal’. They have to regurgitate this theory in the exams to get their coveted degrees. Some teachers at Harvard University were shown to be on the payroll of statin manufacturers. Drug barons took bets on their sales and spent a billion dollars in one year on advertisements and doctor hospitality to net just about $13 billion in one year itself!
The CEO of a company was the happiest at his success. Almost every patient who took statins suffered not one but many side-effects, symptomatic (like muscle pain and muscle loss) or asymptomatic (like liver damage, muscle damage, kidney damage, brain damage and what have you).
An Australian study revealed that every patient on statins suffered muscle damage right from the beginning! The scariest part of the whole saga is that these companies knew that statins destroy the liver’s normal function. Liver produces cholesterol to keep us alive and healthy, as cholesterol forms the cell membrane of every human cell of 120 trillion in all that we have. Billions of them die a natural death (apoptosis) daily to be replaced by new cells. The raw material for the new cell membrane (wall) has to come from the liver, our body’s cholesterol manufacturing centre.
The JUPITER (Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention: An Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin trial) study, one of the largest studies in the conventional sense, revealed that statins had not passed the litmus test. Interestingly, brakes were applied on the study by a major drug manufacturer mid-way.
Most Sold Drug
One of the largest studies of statins in the world—a meta-analysis of 113,394 patients—showed that between 7%-27% of patients on statins will become diabetics in one year. In a randomised control trial (RCT), done long before the drug was certified for human use by the US Food and Drug Administration, Rosuvastatin (a commonly prescribed statin these days) was blamed for rhabdomyolysis (the rapid destruction of skeletal muscle tissue) in patients. How could that drug be licensed? Yet, it got the green signal from the FDA and went on to become the most sold drug!
Be that as it may, the very connection between fat profile and heart disease is so shaky that if we went into it from one end to the other, many skeletons will stumble out of the regulatory body’s cupboards. The whole edifice of fat-diseases connection started with Ancel Key’s study. That study was badly sexed up and doctored to get positive connection where none existed. The rest of the story was built on that dry-sand foundation.
Truth, unfortunately, is very lazy. By the time truth could pull up its pants to start the race, falsehood and mystery will have gone round the globe twice over! We might break our heads; but the powerful pharma lobby will prevail, truth notwithstanding. God save mankind from this unholy nexus between the drug manufacturers, the medical profession and the regulatory agencies. Thank God, the industry has not succeeded in getting statins put into drinking water supplies! However, they have put it into the controversial poly-pill—an alleged Rambaana (panacea) for all ills. Let’s hope for that utopia where truth prevails.
(Professor Dr BM Hegde, a Padma Bhushan awardee in 2010, is an MD, PhD, FRCP (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dublin), FACC and FAMS.)
Then to question the link between high cholesterol levels and heart disease, without substantial supportive arguments. True, pharmacutical industry is making obscene profits, they are not charitable organizations, are they. Everyone with hyperchlosterolemia has a choice- don't take statins ans save a bunch of money and accept the risk of heart attack and premature death.Or take statins, be poorer, and risk rhabdomyolisis and reduce the risk of a myocardial event.
I am 100% with you on statins. I personally was prescribed statins a few years ago by my cardiologist, for borderline cholesterol levels (around 220), and i immediately suffered extreme bone and muscle pain. My cardio was sane enough to stop the statin medication and now during each visit he refuses to prescribe statins to me, and says that a borderline 220 level of cholesterol is associated with no cardiac risk, whereas the risk from statins is far higher.