Interesting Reading on Statins

[ChatterAlly]

Your input is requested.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/heart-health/0611/ada-statin-use-tied-to-plaque-build-up-in-small-study.aspx?xid=aol_eh-cardio_5_20120611_&aolcat=ESR&icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl6%7Csec3_lnk2%26pLid%3D168930

Thanks, Ally

[ed34]

Just to add. I think most people are probably wondering about the link between statins and CAD. Whether they are good or bad drugs is a main concern growing in the public eye. One thing is sure, they certainly are great anti-inflammatory drugs, and maybe this is the sole reason they have helped with CAD and not through lowering normal LDL. So I do agree they are likely beneficial to CAD patients, but with so many possible side effects, is it really worth getting people without CAD onto these drugs?

[ed34]

Not sure if what I've been reading is true, but it seems from a lot of material on the internet that the blame of the normal LDL has been wrong. I think more scientists are turning now to the smaller LDL which seems to be the culprit in CAD. I have also read that statins have very little effect, if any at all, on the smaller LDL.

[erijon]

I am familiar with this study and it has a few flaws, the largest one being the size of the control group. There were only 301 participants and of those there were 89 cardiac events. The study (RACED) was designed to follow a sub-set of another study (VADT) which was designed to find the link between intensive glycemic control and vascular disease. These participants were all diabetics with advanced CAD. The findings that you are reading are NOT a study finding, only an observation and no positive link was noted. You can't really make claims from a study that was not designed to research a different theory than the outcome being stated. In order to really determine if statin use has a link to increased calcium plaques would require a study of 10K participants with a follow up period of 10 years. I don't put much stock in these findings, but it is one more thing one needs to keep in mind when using statins.

For each "inconclusive" findings report such as this I can give you dozens of links to studies that were done specifically to determine the impact of statins on cardiovascular disease.

Just my thoughts.

Jon

[ChatterAlly]

Wow, thanks for your input. I am dumb founded by this. My trigs are off the chart so I have a very high fat content in my blood, but the drug for that is really a fenofibrate and not statin.  ????

[Occupant]

Yeah, right up my alley. I started Statins about 12 years ago, no reason other that high Cholesterol. Since the doctors were hammering me about this, I got a CT Scan at the same time and had to pay for it out of my own pocket. There was no Agatston Score then, but they considered the Calcium Phosphate deposits negligible, but I took the Statins anyway - your doctor knows best. Ten years later I did another Scan. It turned out, I had extensive plaque with a score of 1242. I quit the Statins then for good because of the terrible side effects I had.