A recent study says negative news coverage of statin drugs makes some patients discontinue their use, subsequently producing more heart attacks (and death) as a result. But, one of the authors was paid by the drug maker as a consultant. Does this automatically nullify the study? Or, is there something else going on?
statins
A new report highlights the number of Americans who are candidates for reducing their risk of heart and vascular disease because they have elevated LDL levels. It also reveals how many of them are actually taking lipid-lowering drugs, such as statins. And as it turns out, it's not enough.
Two new studies, which deal with the extra information a calcium scan can contribute to risk calculation for predicting coronary heart disease events over a 10-year course, found that coronary artery calcium scores of very low or zero reduced the likelihood of CHD events by about half. This can eliminate the need for statins.
In 2013, a combined panel of cardiology and lipid experts under the aegis of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) published revised recommendations for candidates for statin therapy to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke or sudden death due to coronary artery disease: CVD). Rather than focusing, as always before (e.g. the ATP-III published in 2003) on lipid levels, LDL especially, the new report emphasized overall heart risk using other parameters including age, weight, blood pressure, and diabete
Follow-up on two of our recent, important Dispatch items. California s Assembly has cleared the next-to-last legislative hurdle toward removing the state s non-medical exemptions for children s vaccinations. And an FDA panel has approved overwhelmingly a new type of cholesterol-lowering medication.
The European Society of Anesthesiologists is meeting this week in Berlin, and one study of note that will be presented describes the effects of administering cardiovascular medications to patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG).
CABG, known more commonly as bypass surgery, is performed when a patient experiences a blockage or narrowing of the vessels that supply the heart with blood. T
Evidence supporting a link possibly causal between statins and diabetes has been accumulating for a while now. But never before has any study shown such an increased risk: 46 percent?! Of concern, but we would advise waiting for more confirmation.
The association between cataracts the clouding of the lens of the eye and taking statins the widely used cholesterol-lowering drug class has been studied in the past and results have been inconsistent and controversial. A new observational study conducted by researchers from the University of British Columbia led
The cardiovascular benefit of the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs has been firmly established for quite some time.
But, a twenty-year follow up of the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS) may have raised a few eyebrows. These drugs work better than expected even long after they have been stopped.
Of all the misconceptions we regularly deal with at ACSH, the mangling of cause and effect is way up there. Between the generally poor state of American scientific acumen and groups that have a vested interest in obfuscating the truth for their own purposes, we will never run out of topics.
Throughout their 27-year history, statins have been the subject of considerable discussion and controversy. They have been regarded as dangerous, unproven drugs on one end of the spectrum to miracles that prevent heart attacks on the other, and much in between.
Now, a group from Oregon State University s College of Pharmacy in Portland claims that statin use is associated with decreased exercise in men.