Statins, Are They The Same?

[Kaojai]

Does that mean other statin meds aren't as good?

The CEO or whatever from AstraZeneca was on TV , Bloomberg I think, and asked that question and smiled, waffled and never answered.

Also:

Vitamin C Can Lower CRP Levels

A UC Berkeley study, led by Gladys Block, PhD, suggests that 1,000 mg of daily supplemental vitamin C can lower concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), the marker associated with systemic inflammation. (Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Jan. 1, 2009). It suggests that a daily dose of supplemental vitamin C can lower CRP levels in healthy, non-smoking adults in two months.

Gladys Block and her staff found that for people with elevated CRP levels, the amount of CRP reduction achieved by taking vitamin C in this particular study is comparable to that in many statin studies.

A multinational clinical trial led by researchers at Harvard Medical School (the Jupiter Trial), found that among people who had high levels of CRP at baseline, levels of CRP were 37 percent lower in the subjects who took statins compared to those who took the placebo.

In the UC Berkeley study on vitamin C, participants who started out with CRP levels greater than 2 milligrams per liter had 34 percent lower levels of CRP with vitamin C compared with a placebo after two months.

"This is clearly a line of research worth pursuing," said Dr. Block. "It has recently been suggested by some researchers that people with elevated CRP should be put on statins as a preventive measure. For people who have elevated CRP but not elevated LDL cholesterol, our data suggest that vitamin C should be investigated as an alternative to statins, or as something to be used to delay the time when statin use becomes necessary."

The benefits to the consumer are that Vitamin C is considerably less costly, and it does not carry the risk of serious side-effects associated with statins.

Source: Ellen Troyer, MT, MA (Chief Research Officer, Biosyntrx.com)

[Kaojai]

BTW

But is it all worth it? According to an article being published in the medical journal The Lancet this week, the answer is probably no.

But if you're already taking statins, even if you believe they're useless, be careful about stopping:

Statin Withdrawal Hard on the Heart

Discontinuing Statins Can Lead to Rapid Rise in Cholesterol and C-Reactive Protein

By Charlene Laino

Stopping cholesterol-lowering statin drugs after long-term use packs not one, but two potentially deadly punches to the heart.

That's the bottom line of a new study that shows that people who discontinued taking the drugs experienced rapid rises in both C-reactive protein (CRP) and LDL cholesterol levels. These data provide support for the acute increase in cardiovascular risk associated with statin discontinuation, they write.

Statins lower not only cholesterol, but also reduce CRP, a marker of harmful inflammation in the arteries that can lead to blood clots, says researcher Folkert Asselbergs, MD, PhD, of the University Medical Center Groningen in The Netherlands.

Dozens of studies have now shown that CRP, like cholesterol, is an important, independent predictor of heart attack and stroke risk, he says.

"If you stop statins, it's a double whammy," Asselbergs tells WebMD. "Statin withdrawal leads to a rapid and significant increase in CRP, independent of the parallel LDL increase.

"If you're on a statin, keep on your medication!" he says.

Findings a Wake-Up Call

Asselbergs and colleagues studied 566 people who had been enrolled in a study pitting the cholesterol-lowering statin drug Pravachol against placebo.

Four years into the study those on Pravachol had:

a 16% drop in CRP

a 27% decrease in LDL "bad" cholesterol levels

In contrast, those on placebo had:

a 4% increase in CRP

Stable levels of LDL "bad" cholesterol

But when the participants on pravastatin stopped their medication, both CRP and LDL "bad" cholesterol shot up to pretreatment levels.

James H. Stein, MD, co-chairman of the cardiology meeting and associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, says the findings are a wake-up call.

"I can't tell you how many people say they feel better and want to stop their medication," he tells WebMD.

"While it might seem like common sense that you would get worse if you do that, many people don't believe it," Stein says. "A study like this shows us the magnitude of how bad things can really get."

Stein moderated a news conference to release the findings at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

[Tolley]

Once you are on the pharmeceutical merry go round it is very hard to get off it!

[wernerfreitag]

An interesting combination of active ( cheap ) ingredients is in the so-called "Polypill" , including Simvastain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypill

The first Indian drugs based on this concept are the way to the market.

No just business !

[Thailand]

Current thinking:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18091708