Crestor Protects Your Heart With High Or Low Cholesterol? Come On!

Popular statin Crestor now recommended for low cholesterol…HUH?

Whenever you read a study that calls for an increase in the use of a prescription drug for an even larger group of people, look out. You can almost bet the funding for such a study comes from the pharmaceutical company that stands to profit the most from such a proclamation (I’ve previously blogged about this happening in the artificial sweetener industry). And that is precisely what happened on Monday when drug manufacturer AstraZeneca released the results of a study about their cash cow pill for high-cholesterol called Crestor at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, Louisiana, according to this Associated Press story about it.

Dr. Paul Ridker from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA

Lead researcher Dr. Paul Ridker, Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Boston, MA-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital, looked at data from 17,802 patients participating in the JUPITER trial with high C-reactive protein, aka CRP (a measure of inflammation), as well as low LDL cholesterol (defined as below 130) from all around the world. Twenty-five percent of the study participants were African-American or Hispanic and 40 percent were women. The men were required to be at least 50 and the women in the study needed to be 60 or older. None of the participants showed any signs of heart problems or diabetes prior to the study.

The study split the participants into two groups:

GROUP 1–Took 20 mg of the statin drug Crestor daily
GROUP 2–Took a “dummy” placebo pill daily

What was supposed to be a 5-year study was shortened to nearly two years when the results of GROUP 1 were far superior to the ones being seen in GROUP 2. According to the study, the Crestor group reduced the risk of heart attacks, strokes, heart-related deaths or hospitalizations and even open heart surgeries by 44 percent. Heart attack risk dropped 54 percent, stroke risk by 48 percent, and heart bypass surgery risk by 46 percent, Dr. Ridker noted.

Dr. Ridker was absolutely giddy as he shared the alleged benefits received by those who took Crestor.

“If you’re skinny it worked, if you’re heavy it worked. If you lived here or there, if you smoked, it worked,” he remarked.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the company the makes Crestor–AstraZeneca–funded the study and members of Dr. Ridker’s research team have financial ties to the statin drug market. Although I don’t think that necessarily dismisses the results of the findings in the study, it certainly should make you skeptical enough to dig deeper into the details of what this study was really all about. Read the study for yourself in the November 20, 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

We’ve been bombarded for many years by statin drug company ads featuring Crestor, Lipitor (with artificial heart inventor Dr. Robert Jarvik obnoxiously pushing it), Zetia (with that obnoxious, nasally-voiced overweight female television cook), and more being such a necessary part of our defense against heart disease, but take a look at what this new “study” is suggesting. Now, even people with “low cholesterol and no big risk for heart disease” can supposedly benefit from taking their own daily dose of Crestor, too. HUH?!

The media and members of the American Heart Association conference where this research was presented heralded this as a dramatic moment in the history of heart health management, but I gotta ask the obvious question here–WHY? Why are even MORE of these dangerous statin drugs with unknown long-term side effects being promoted to people who have no reason to be taking them in the first place when they have not been shown to produce any significantly lower incidence of heart disease than those who do not take them? And yet now they want to put another 7 million perfectly healthy people on a statin? Did I just enter The Twilight Zone or what (feels that way sometimes!)?

I took both Crestor and Lipitor prior to my low-carb lifestyle because I too got sucked into thinking I HAD to in order to prevent a heart attack. And I paid for it with EXCRUCIATING muscle and joint pain (I was not the only one having this happen) that I thought I was destined to live with for the rest of my life. We all know somebody who is on one of these statin drugs and it’s sickening how prevalent and normal they have become in our daily lives. Before I educated myself fully on what lipid readings are all about, I too thought about going on a statin even after my 180-pound weight loss on low-carb. I am appreciative of many of my early, experienced low-carb blog readers for explaining why taking a statin would be folly.

The cardiologists are hailing this as a brave new discovery that will help them in their treatment of heart disease because they will be even MORE aggressive in offering statins as a means for treating heart disease (we’ve seen this before with extremely high doses of 40mg of Crestor pushed on patients in studies just to see what would happen). Do you mean they’ll be hawking Crestor and Lipitor even greater than they already do? I’ve heard many of my readers tell me that their doctor wants them on a statin drug even with LDL cholesterol levels as low as 100. RIDICULOUS!!! Don’t they realize low cholesterol levels can lead to depression, suicide, and death? And haven’t they seen the research showing the elderly benefit from having HIGH LDL cholesterol? Apparently not.

The worst part about the ramifications of this study is that they are probably going to use this to justify changing the current guidelines for cholesterol. In other words, maybe that coveted 200 level for the total cholesterol will be reduced down to 180, 170, or even 160. It is incredibly ignorant for them to even look at the total cholesterol because it is an irrelevant number without the proper context. By that, I am referring to the particle size of the LDL and the many subfractions (upwards of eight or more) that exist.

Quick lipid lesson: All LDL cholesterol is not created equal. A specialized test conducted by Liposcience will show you exactly how many LDL particles are present in your body and categorize them according to the size. The large, fluffy subfraction are the most protective and the small, dense subfraction are the most dangerous. As you can see in the above diagram, the endothelial gap is where LDL can slip in and get trapped inside the arterial wall. The only way LDL can fit through those holes is if it is small enough to squeeze through. Conversely, when the LDL is larger, it cannot fit through the openings and instead moves along through the blood (high LDL cholesterol is good for you…it’s low HDL cholesterol that is bad news for your heart).

As I’ve stated many times before, the best way to increase the size of your LDL particle size is to consume a high-fat, low-carb diet. This will raise your HDL “good” cholesterol to a healthy level above 50 to help manage any LDL that might have slipped through. Incidentally, your triglycerides will also significantly reduce down to below 100 when you live a low-carb lifestyle further improving your odds in the fight against heart disease. Studies have shown that HDL and triglycerides are MUCH better indicators of heart health than LDL and total cholesterol which have been the nearly exclusive focus of physicians ever since statins hit the scene.

One obstacle in the way of this all-Crestor-all-the-time scenario is money. The cost of putting so many more Americans on statins is stratospheric–$9 BILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY! Yeah, I’ll just write a check for that one. HA! With an uneasy economy, I don’t know how many people have the discretionary cash to shell out another chunk of cash on something that is highly suspect at doing any good for you anyway. But you can’t underestimate how influential and convincing that bombardment of all those television ads for statins have been in brainwashing people into thinking they NEED Crestor, Lipitor, Zetia, Zocor or any of the many other “heart-healthy” prescription drugs (it happens all the time in marketing from companies like McDonald’s, politics and elections, and the like).

Dr. Mark Hlatky gives grim reality of the Crestor therapy

Thankfully, Stanford University cardiologist Dr. Mark Hlatky added a stark sense of reality into this Crestor-pushing nonsense by writing in an editorial appearing concurrently with this study in the New England Journal of Medicine that nearly 120 people would need to be on Crestor for a period of two years to prevent a single heart attack, stroke or death.

“Everybody likes the idea of prevention. We need to slow down and ask how many people are we going to be treating with drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent heart disease, versus a lot of other things we’re not doing” Hlatky wrote.

Amen brother! How many of these people blindly go on Crestor or some other statin drug to lower their “high cholesterol” without even asking the question whether that is necessary or not. When we put our health solely in the hands of doctors and other medical professionals without doing our own fact-checking and research behind what they are recommending, then we have abdicated our responsibility to be in control of the direction of our own lives by simply allowing someone else to do it. That to me is inexplicable! Take control of your own health and realize doctors work for YOU.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been made selling statins making them the #1 most prescribed and biggest pharmaceutical moneymakers in the world. Despite the fact that so many people are taking these cholesterol-lowering wonder drugs, many people are still having heart attacks despite their “normal” cholesterol readings (remember the lesson we learned from Tim Russert?). So now doctors are scrambling trying to figure out another way to test heart health risks and the best they can come up with is prescribing even higher numbers of statins? Does that make any logical sense at all to anyone?

I was happy to see this AP story mention C-reactive protein (CRP) as a better way to measure heart disease risk factors than total and LDL cholesterol since it is a measure of inflammation in the arteries where the damage is being done. Like I stated earlier, the best way to reduce build-up in the arterial wall is to start livin’ la vida low-carb to insure your LDL cholesterol particle size is the large, fluffy kind that will protect you. Eating high-carb crap will shrink your LDL to the artery-clogging small, dense version that is the REAL culprit in heart attacks that you never hear most medical professionals talk about.

Interestingly, something rather peculiar happened to the GROUP 1 study participants who took Crestor that wasn’t so good–their blood sugar levels soared and many of them developed Type 2 diabetes. Hmmm, I wonder what it was about this drug that made THAT happen? And let’s not forget the side effects which have been well-documented regarding muscle and joint pain and even vivid, scary nightmares! There’s one thing you can take to the bank about statin drugs that is the cold, hard truth: they are all about making tons of money and most certainly NOT about improving health. PERIOD! Sure, the cholesterol numbers drop, but at what cost?

The last time I checked earlier this year my total cholesterol was 326 and I DON’T need a statin drug to artificially lower it! One of the dirty little secrets you NEVER hear talked about with statin drugs–it depletes the body of the important CoQ10 it needs for a variety of functions. With gobs of class action lawsuits being filed against Lipitor and undoubtedly against Crestor and the other statin drug companies soon, now is NOT the time to be encouraging people to take this risky drug. Instead, we should be telling people to start livin’ la vida low-carb and reap the benefits of a heart-healthy diet free from the use of prescription drugs! Now THAT is a plan of action destined for success.

11-11-08 UPDATE: As if this study wasn’t enough reason for a massive influx of new statin drug users, don’t be surprised when they start seriously peddling Crestor and Lipitor to obese kids because their arteries are “old” in a vascular sense. Plaque build-up in an obese child makes them as bad as a 45-year old? I’m telling you, they’re REALLY reaching here.

11-18-08 UPDATE: Noted Atkins low-carb diet expert Jackie Eberstein weighed in with her comments about the Jupiter/Crestor study. Here’s just a little of what she wrote:

“Many people don’t know, including many health care practitioners, how results in a study can be reported to make the benefits appear more impressive than they actually are.

What is missing from our national dialogue about healthcare and its increasing costs overburdening our already sick economy is personal responsibility. Each of us needs to be responsible for the only body we will ever have.”

11-18-08 UPDATE: And now here’s Dr. Jonny Bowden’s always interesting take on it:

“For years I’ve also been saying that any benefit that might be had by taking statin drugs has nothing to do with lowering cholesterol. But statin drugs have an interesting little “side effect”: they happen to lower inflammation.

Oh no. What you’ll probably see is a movement to lower the “normal” cholesterol levels even further down so that even more people can be put on these drugs.”