President Clinton And Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs
16 Sep 2004
Former President Clinton has joined 400,000 Americans who required coronary bypass surgery in the last year. Clinton had high blood cholesterol and took cholesterol-lowering drugs (CLDs). But these drugs, along with superb medical care, neither prevented nor cured his disease. And nothing was said of the risk of taking CLDs?
Today it’s like attacking motherhood to question the value of CLDs. But there are scientists who believe it’s a myth that cholesterol is the major risk factor for heart disease. They say there’s blind addiction to these drugs and occasionally serious side effects. But with billions of dollars at stake studies questioning the benefits of CLD tend to be buried.
A major study called Prosper showed you can exchange one devil for another. Those taking CLD had 22 fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease. But this was offset by an increase of 24 deaths from cancer.
In other studies high blood cholesterol did prove to be associated with an increased risk of heart disease. But low cholesterol levels showed a greater risk of death from non-cardiac causes such as violent death, mental problems, liver and kidney disease, stroke and some cancers.
It’s also been shown that over age 50 low cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of death. Researchers at the University of Denmark report that about 15 per cent of those over this age on CLDs suffer nerve damage. I can attest to that fact. One month after taking a CLD I developed numbness in both feet.
Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, an outspoken critic of CLDs, says that even in the male group with the highest risk of heart disease, CLDs only resulted in 0.5 percent fewer deaths per year. And that some studies showed no benefit at all. It’s also worth noting that pharmaceutical companies play with statistics when presenting the results of scientific studies on the benefits of CLDs. The term "relative risk" fools many people.
For example, suppose 1,000 patients are placed on a cholesterol-lowering drug and within a year 5 die of heart attack. In a similar number of patients not talking CLDs 10 patients die from this disease. In this case CLD’s decreased the risk of heart attack by 50 percent (relative risk), a significant figure.
But the absolute risk is what’s important to you. It’s the actual risk of something happening. In the first scenario there are 5 chances in 1,000 of dying while taking CLDs and in the second instance 10 chances in 1,000 of dying. This comparison isn’t so dramatic. And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that if you’re selling a billion dollar drug you stress the 50 percent relative risk which impresses prescribing physicians.
Here’s another example of playing with deceptive figures. One study showed that doctors were more likely to prescribe one CLD when told it decreased mortality by 30 % (relative risk) instead of being told it improves survival from 88.5% to 91.8%. These are different ways of saying the same thing!
This column isn’t intended to tell readers to toss CLDs down the drain. Rather, it’s written to provide insight into the other side of the coin. 75 years ago coronary heart disease was a rarity so we’re obviously doing something wrong. The big error is obvious, a faulty lifestyle.
I, and other skeptics believe it’s madness to suggest that lower and lower levels of blood cholesterol is the cure for heart disease. It’s not that simple and this thinking has produced a nation of cholesterol phobiacs. And that there’s a huge potential risk if people are allowed to purchase these drugs without a doctor’s prescription, as has recently happened in England.
People forget that cholesterol is a vital substance needed in a number of metabolic actions in the body. A huge amount of cholesterol is present in brain tissue. It’s also needed to repair cell membranes, manufacture vitamin D, and male and female hormones. This may be one reason non-cardiac problems occur when patients take CLDs. There’s always a price to pay when taking drugs.
President Clinton’s bypass has made cholesterol a priority media topic and sales of CLDs will no doubt soar. Next week, why CLDs may be setting the stage for an epidemic of heart failure.
