Prof Peter Weissberg is again wanting statins to be prescribed more widely.

This Telegraph article reports that Prof Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, is suggesting that prescribing statins should be considered, in order to protect against blood clots in the veins of the legs and in the lungs. This guy does an awful lot of suggesting that statins be taken. - Forgive me for being cynical and asking, is there something in it for him?

I wish that as medical director of the British Heart Foundation, he would be as ardent to advise people to avoid salt and salty food - the simplest and most effective way to lower cholesterol levels and high blood pressure, and reduce the risk of heart disease and heart attacks - as he is to suggest prescribing drugs with many adverse side-effects to people who are not ill, in the questionable expectation that the drugs may possibly prevent illness.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

More criticism of statins: - doubts are being raised over whether statins really live up to the hype about them

So much for the wonder drug - Sunday Telegraph

Extracts:

"More than three per cent of the population are now taking statins, at a cost to the NHS of £730 million last year. They have gained the reputation of being something of a wonder drug and are now prescribed not just for patients already suffering from heart disease but also for those identified as being at risk of developing cardiac problems in the future. The Government claims that its policy of encouraging the prescription of statins saves up to 7,000 lives a year.

Now, though, doubts are being raised over whether statins really live up to the hype. Dr James LeFanu, medical columnist of The Sunday Telegraph, highlighted the issue a month ago - and has since received more than 400 letters from readers who have had a less than happy experience with the drugs."

"So far, the Government and the medical establishment disagree with Dr LeFanu and those patients who have stopped taking their statins. The biggest British study into the effectiveness of the drug, published in The Lancet five years ago, followed 20,536 patients who took simvastatin or a placebo over five years. It concluded that for high-risk patients, the drug could cut the risk of heart attacks, strokes or the need for surgery to unblock arteries by about one third. Critically, it said prescribing should be widened to cover increasing numbers of patients, because it had been shown the drug was "so well tolerated and safe".

But the study, funded by the Medical Research Council and the British Heart Foundation, was unusual in one significant respect. Of 63,603 patients screened to take part in the trial, about half - 32,145 - were selected as eligible. Of these, more than one third were subsequently excluded, following a "run-in period" where they tried the drug for up to six weeks. Reasons for their exclusion varied. Overall, 26 per cent either dropped out or were deemed by researchers to be unlikely to keep taking the drugs for the full five years. A further 10 per cent were excluded because their GPs warned of increased risks due to existing health conditions. Others were excluded because of apparent side-effects, such as rising levels of liver enzymes and creatine, and, in some cases, developing muscle weakness.

So, of the 63,603 initially selected, only 20,536 continued - a mere 32 per cent. The chairman of the British Heart Foundation, Professor Peter Weissberg, admits: "It tried everyone on the drug and only the ones who didn't have side-effects were continued. That is unusual, but dozens of other trials have looked at this in a more standard way and have concluded that the side-effects are not major. One of the problems with clinical trials will always be the drop-out rate. The key thing to establish with this trial was: if you take this drug, does it save your life or not? It concluded that it does.""

It's also worth looking at relative risk and number needed to treat

Lose weight AND lower your high cholesterol level AND lower your risk of heart attack by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

More about the dangers of statins and the ignorance of doctors about the devastating symptoms they cause when prescribed to lower cholesterol levels.

The deeper I go into it, the fishier statins seem to become - Dr James LeFanu - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Statins again, whose mass prescription is turning out to be much more serious (and sinister) than I could have supposed.

The response to my last two columns has been, almost literally, overwhelming, so why are doctors apparently so unaware of the devastating symptoms they can cause? The British Heart Foundation (whose chairman, Professor Peter Weissberg accused me last week of being "easily led" on this matter) claims that statins have "minimal side effects" compared to those taking controlled (or placebo) drugs. And, indeed, several major trials report an astonishingly low incidence, of around 0.5 per cent, of the commonest side-effects of severe muscular aches and pains, both in those taking statins and those taking the placebo.

This seems staggeringly unlikely, the more so since a recent survey of 5,000 patients taking statins, conducted for a Dutch television programme, produced a rather different figure of 27 per cent, That would mean that nearly a million people are affected by statin-induced muscular pains and reduced mobility. It is not necessary to be a conspiracy merchant to suspect that something fishy is going on here.

The need to find out what is really happening is all the more urgent as medical leaders and prominent cardiologists are now pressing for a yet lower "ideal" cholesterol level, with a target of less than four, which will catch yet more millions in the statin trap. Several readers report that their family doctors have already doubled the doses of their drugs in the last six months. The time has surely come, with such vast sums of public money at stake, for questions in the House."

There should also be questions in the House about the reckless overprescribing of steroids and other drugs that cause massive fluid retention and therefore obesity and even morbid obesity. They damage the lives of scores of thousands of innocent sufferers in this country, and probably worldwide the total of victims would number millions.

If you are concerned about the health of your heart, it would be wise to cut down on the amount of salt that you eat. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)