STATINS: Saviours of Mankind, or Expensive Scam?

Introduction

Although there is not, and never has been, any convincing evidence that levels of serum cholesterol have any causal relationship with coronary heart disease, that hasn't stopped the cholesterol hypothesis being used as a basis for the sale of drugs to lower cholesterol.

Over the last half of the twentieth century a whole range of drugs were tried. All, without exception, were less than successful. And no evidence was produced that cholesterol-lowering, whether by diet or various older drugs such as clofibrate, gemfibrozil, cholestyramine, colestipol, or nicotinic acid, extends life or reduces overall mortality.

But the new type of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins do appear to be successful. There is no doubt that in trials there has been a reduction in the numbers of deaths among those taking statins compared to control groups. For the first time cholesterol-lowering has shown significant improvement in mortality rates, from coronary mortality, stroke mortality and total mortality.

Statins are now the drugs of choice and aggressively marketed. As these cost around £400 per person per year, and they have to be taken for life, the drug companies can look forward to several years of very healthy profits until the patents run out.

So statins increase the health of drug companies' bank balances, but do they really increase the health of those who take them? And do they represent good value for money as far as a cash-strapped National Health Service is concerned?

Full article available here: Second Opinions - Barry Groves PhD