It is a well-known fact that statins will lower your cholesterol. Many studies have demonstrated that the drugs do, in fact, work.
But the question is not, Do statins work? The real question is, Do statins help you live longer? And, believe it or not, we recently received the answer from the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The article shows the results of a huge 513 multi-center trial. The study compared the all-cause mortality of users of pravastatin to usual care (lifestyle changes) for high cholesterol. The average starting total cholesterol was 224, HDL 48 and triglycerides 152. And the average age was 66.
The researchers gave pravastatin (40 mg) to 5,170 and usual care to 5,185. Pravastatin was found to reduce cholesterol by 17% vs. 8% with usual care over four years. Bad LDL cholesterol levels were reduced by 28% with pravastatin vs. 11% with usual care. With the frenzy over cholesterol as a killer, and medical suggestions that half our population should go on these synthetic chemicals, you might lay odds that the pravastatin group did better. Good thing you were not in Las Vegas. The house would have won.
In fact, the all-cause mortality of the groups was essentially identical. The authors soft-pedaled the truth with the following conclusion. The results may be due to the modest differential in total cholesterol (9.6%) and LDL-C (16.7%) between pravastatin and usual care compared with prior statin trials supporting cardiovascular disease prevention.
What they are burying is that lifestyle changes do as much as the costly statin to save your life. So what is society getting for thousands of dollars per year per patient for this class of chemicals? Thinner wallets and congestive heart failure (caused by the statins) — that is it!
I’ve said for years that statin therapy may lower your cholesterol, but that it wont help you live longer. And this study proves it. Before you start taking any drug therapy, get your doctor to prove that your life quality will be improved or lengthened. Just because it changes some arbitrary number does not mean it will save your life.
Ref: JAMA. 2002 December 18;288(23):2998-3007.