STATINS AND THE GERIATRIC POPULATION
THE WAR ON CHOLESTEROL CONTINUES
Pete Linforth – Birmingham/United Kingdom – Pixabay
“Not only do the new guidelines recommend statins — such as Lipitor — for all people with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or high levels of bad cholesterol, but also for healthy adults whose risk of heart attack or stroke is more than 7.5 percent over the next 10 years.” From a November 24, 2014 internet article called Elderly Should Take Cholesterol-Lowering Statins: US Study
Remember late last year and earlier this year when I reported on the newest Cholesterol Guidelines and how financially conflicted they are (HERE & HERE)? They haven’t gone away. In a brand new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine (one of the many journals of the American Medical Association), we learn that virtually 100% of the American population 66 and older qualifies for a STATIN DRUG. The study (Eligibility for Statin Therapy According to New Cholesterol Guidelines and Prevalent Use of Medication to Lower Lipid Levels in an Older US Cohort); despite stating in the first paragraph that, “older individuals… may be prone to the adverse effects of statin use,” are pushing for nearly universal prescription / consumption of these drugs in the geriatric population —- even if you do not have any of the risk factors such as OBESITY, DIABETES — or even HIGH CHOLESTEROL.
The study, which was done at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation (a division of the Abbott Northwestern Hospital), said that while 100% of the men in the study of over 6,000 adults qualifies for a statin drug, only (emphasis in the word “only”) 97% of the women did. I only tell you this so that you will know that when you go to your doctor, they will push statins on you. After all, it was only two short years ago that the medical community, in a study published in the
Journal of Czech Physicians, was actually debating putting statins in the water supply (Addition of Statins Into the Public Water Supply? Risks of Side Effects and Low Cholesterol Levels) — something that has long been debated for ANTI-DEPRESSANT DRUGS. What can I say? Studies like this are EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE at it’s finest.