This article reminds me of what I have always thought of as one reason why cholesterol-lowing has been able to become such a mantra: familial hypercholesterolaemia. This is quite clearly a genetic disorder and has nothing to do with cholesterol levels in ordinary people. But the fact that people with the disorder typically succumb to heart attacks at an early age has made it possible for an (incorrect) argument to be made for lowering cholesterol in everyone. It’s a bit like the argument about cholesterol being found in atheromatous plaques, and therefore is deadly and must be eliminated. Fatty acids are also found in large numbers in atheromatous plaques, and do just as much damage or even more, but you never hear about this, probably because there isn’t a specific drug to deal with it.

I can download the PDF no problem.

http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/104/10/867.full.pdf+html

The great cholesterol myth; unfortunate consequences of Brown and Goldstein’s mistake

https://web.archive.org/web/20131207062903/http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/104/10/867.full

Well said Lorna, certain oxides of cholesterol have been proven to be so much more atherogenic than has cholesterol itself, and within much the same body of work pure cholesterol, free from cholesterol oxide impurities, has been exonerated from having any atherogenic or carcinogenic properties whatsoever.

Every time I meet a research scientist they say this:

“Doctors are not scientists”

And research like this explains why.

One newer TV commercial, at least new to me, concerns a law firm looking to bring suite against the makers of Lipitor. The commercial warns that Lipitor can sometimes bring about type 2 diabetes in women. The law firms web sight can be seen at:

http://www.parilmanlaw.com/dangerous-drugs/lipitor-side-effects/

Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord 2009;28:75–80
DOI: 10.1159/000231980 Can be downloaded in full.
Midlife Serum Cholesterol and Increased Risk of Alzheimer’s and Vascular Dementia Three Decades Later
Alina Solomon et al.

I came across this paper first on the WebMD site in 2009. Not properly referenced therein and I enquired from both WebMD and WebMD-BOOTS (UK version) about this use of statins and my comments Both declined to answer.

From the full paper, the following extracts are very pertinent:

Extract from Introduction:

Thus, the best approach implies not only early diagnosis and treatment, but also emphasizes prevention. However, chronic diseases with a long preclinical phase (such as AD) pose inherent difficulties in the identification of their risk factors. Since disease onset cannot be pinpointed, the chances are that true risk relationships (factors increasing the probability of getting the disease) and reverse causality (the effects of the disease itself on various factors) get confused.

Comment: Indeed and three decades use of drugs, with an acknowledged adverse reaction of polyneuropathy and other neurological adverse reactions is ignored as a factor in the development of Alzheimer’s. Now that takes some bias.

Extract from Strengths and Limitations of the Study

Information on lipid lowering treatments, which have been suggested to decrease dementia risk was not available for this study.

Comment: The patient records were available for many possible factors such as age, sex, race, education and other medical conditions (Table 1) but not the therapeutic records. This is unbelievable; patient records without treatment details implies either gross incompetece or negligence or that the records were withheld DELIBERATELY for the purpose of obfuscation and protection of Big Pharma profits.

I therefore did a quick 2×2 Chi-square test using Table 2 of the paper using both the combined and separately the AD and VaD numbers using guidelines on therapy, i.e. cholesterol blood levels over 200 and over 239 mg/dl should be treated with statins while cholesterol levels less than 200 mg/dl would not usually be treated. The results are shown below in the table. As the results were significant it is quite clear why the data on therapy was NOT available; Big Pharma would certainly not approve of results that implicated statins as a possible cause of Alzheimer’s and VaD

PMID: 16866914 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]

Table Showing 2 x 2 analysis (CSS) for combined AD and VaD and assuming TC values above 239 mg/dl as treated with statins. Given guidelines this is almost certain.
Cholesterol categories No dementia %age AD & VaD %age TOTAL %age
NO TREAT (239 mg/dl) 2932 50.31 215 3.69 3147 54.00

Totals 5477 93.98 351 6.02 5828 100

CHI2 = 7.92 p= 0.0049
V2 = 7.91 p= 0.0049
Phi2 = p = 0.0014

This is highly significant and the fact that the actual therapies used were “unavailable” suggests doubtful, if not corrupt, practice and bias. The Relative Rate (RR – much loved by medical statisticians) is a 58% INCREASE associated with the recommended prescription for statins. (The therapy recommendations for high cholesterol are based on US guidelines http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/atp3xsum.pdf)

No wonder this paper is very rarely cited by those claiming that statins ameliorate, moderate or reduce signs and symptoms of AD.

Dr Briffa’s recent polemics are – as always – timely, sane, and most welcome to see in print. Whilst we are all being medically ‘treated’ for a wave of diabetes… a wave of Altheimer’s… and sudden mysteriously-escalating epidemics of everything else…. where will it all end!

If not too tangential, I would like to pick up here on Brian’s comments, which are refreshingly more direct than usually seen.

I ask just how many patients is a doctor permitted to kill, maim or otherwise seriously harm before investigation takes place? If levels of harm result from what is currently considered “good professional practice”, i.e. government guidelines, NO investigation into avoidable deaths is ever deemed necessary, least of all by the GMC.

Adverse, sometimes fatal, drug effects (‘Drug Traffic Accidents’, as RxISK terms them) are seldom if ever reported, as a GP’s response to feedback is generally denial – denial that such consequences can stem from their prescribed drug. How unprofessional, wilful, stubborn, or unbelievably ignorant are these denials. As carer for my husband, who believed he had to take his indoctrinated doctor’s advice, I, like thousands of others, live with the daily consequence of, not blunders, but a wilful, stubbornness from my adamant, fixed-thinking GP.

To pick up on Brian’s 4th July comment that those responsible for foisting poisons on us be prosecuted…

There is a time limit after which no action can be taken.

There is a tripwire, after which you will not succeed.

And no doctor will ever be suspended or prosecuted for following current medical ideology.

Nice stitch-ups for those of us coping with bereavement from death-by-doctor. (In the current profitable drug climate, victims are merely written off. My mother was one, and my husband has all but become another.)

Perhaps we should start our own Register of Avoidable Deaths.

For those who may be interested, I wd recommend chapter 38 of Gerard Kielty’s book Why Doctors Don’t Make You Healthy, which walks us grimly through the rigmarole – he calls it pantomime – of attempting to sue a doctor. I have no reason to believe that Mr Kielty’s presentation of this thwarted endeavour is not accurate.

Reply to Stephen Rhodes.
So true!
I must have saved the NHS £1000s by stopping all repeat prescriptions, by not having interminable tests, and ceasing to take up surgery time, because I am utterly healthy now.
Imagine these savings million-fold across the nation. Little wonder there is not enough in the coffers for those in real need. But real conditions take serious time and expertise to manage….it is so much easier to deal with the worried well who are terrified at not complying. The really ill are hardly in a position to shout very loud, and the wonderful NHS staff are too busy and tired to make much impact with the powers that be, who appear to mindlessly adhere to those with the loudest voices.
Who said “he who shouts loudest, takes his brother’s share”?
And it goes without saying, “those with the biggest pockets, have the loudest voices!” Ref: Jennifer 2014.

Wow! And this is the man who used a highly selected tolerant statin group (excluding intolerents, potential intolerants, non-compliants (undefined – ? Statin adverse reaction sufferers) to claim a very low incidence of adverse reactions..0
He is also the lead author of the HPS study which included the words “heart protection” and “cholesterol lowering” in the title but nowhere in the report was cholesterol lowering per se (rather than the several pleiotropic actions of statins) demonstrated to be responsible.

Indeed, there were two main treatments groups in the study with three sub-groups in each group, namely

1. The no event group
2. The non-fatal group and
3. The fatal group

These three groups are identifiable and, assuming the cholesterol hypothesis is correct then it can be assumed that the mean cholesterol levels would be in the following order:

The no event group < The non-fatal group < The fatal group respectively in both treatment groups.

Having the data, this is a relatively simple two way ANOVAR.

Personally I cannot conceive that a competent researcher would ignore this, given the title. I did email the CTU requesting many years ago but was ignored.

I conclude that the analysis was done but the results did not support the cholesterol hypothesis so were dumped; something that regularly happens in Phase 3 infomercial studies of this type.

Of course, given the results (and data) of this analysis I am more than willing to retract if the data itself is made available! (Which it won’t be)

Mass-hysteric-lipophobia (everybody is afraid to eat fat – based upon presumption and not fact(s)) has been hugely detrimental to public health.

And my grandmother, insulin dependent, was advised to smoke cigarettes to ease hunger pangs. As I remember she tried hard with Du Maurrier and couldn’t bear them ( but I, as a small child, was charmed by the pretty red box they came in)

There are many different theories on what cause heart disease. There are numerous other ideas that can be employed for preventing a cardiac outside of statins and cholesterol testing, ideas that are likely to be more helpful it seems to me. Yet, all to often there seems to be little interest in promoting these ideas further, by many.

It will be interesting to see who comes out on top in the statin wars. The internet can be a game changer with these kinds of things. I wonder if something else concerning heart disease prevention can and will take hold of the publics imagination.

The other week I read snippets of historian Nialls Furguson article about networks and hierachies. It reminded me a bit of your and others writings Dr Briffa about how the current statin debate is in part being handled.

“Networks Vs. Hierarchies: Which Will Win?”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-27/networks-vs-hierarchies-which-will-win