Why Doctors Think Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Will Solve My Problem and How I Know They Won't

Let's start with the money. Cholesterol lowering drugs are the top earners for the pharmaceutical industries. In 2004 Pfizer netted $10.9 billion in sales from their cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin (popularly known as Lipitor). It beats their other wonder drug - Viagra!

Consider another statin called Crestor. It costs $1,400 a year for the 20-milligram dosage. That is more than $3.80 per day. Now, if you are told that a high cholesterol level means you are about to have a heart attack you will want to pay $3.80 per day - for the rest of your life, even! That is what synthetic drug therapy for high cholesterol and most of these lifestyle-related conditions amounts to anyway. This means big profits for the pharmaceutical companies.

Do they use their big profits to influence what your doctor prescribes? Even though there is little or no positive effect of statin drugs - they do not prevent heart attacks - these "medicines" continue to increase in popularity. The medical profession seems to have its hands "tied" while many patients continue to suffer the FDA-endorsed side effects.

What if there were no kickbacks, would doctors still prescribe these drugs? Or what if the sales of these medicines never meant such "health" to the economy, would the FDA approve them? 

It appears that cholesterol lowering drugs will always be popular. Why? Most patients are "lazy" and unwilling to change their poor habits, and doctors know that. They know that we tend to want to do the same things that make us sick, such as enjoy the high cholesterol foods, neglect exercise and the healthy habits, and not suffer for it. Therefore, pills are great cover-ups. So we eat more cholesterol and stifle our liver - preventing it from functioning normally. 

Not all patients want to depend totally on synthetic drugs and risk debilitating side effects when there are alternatives. If you are not one of these patients, let your doctor know that!

Studies, Scares, Statistics, and Sales!

An article published by Forbes.com reports on a 18,000-patient study involving the cholesterol-lowering drug, Crestor. According to the article, the American Heart Association was greeted with the news that Crestor reduced heart attacks and strokes by a whopping 50%. The prevalence of cardiovascular diseases over recent decades has become a scary nightmare - made worse by the implication of high cholesterol as the culprit.

We learn that cardiologists applaud the Crestor results wholeheartedly! In fact, to borrow sports allegory, they think this is tantamount to a Kobe Briant slam dunk, a Babe Ruth homer, or even a Gretzky-launched blitz on goal. Now before you join the rooting, let me explain the statistics. 

Crestor is trailing Lipitor and other leading cholesterol lowering drugs on the market in sales. Compare $3.5 billion annually for Crestor vs. more than $12 billion annually for Lipitor. So a statistical interpretation such as this is expected to boost sales. But wait...

What does a 50% reduction in heart attack and strokes mean?

People with high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, sexual dysfunction or any other medical, psychological, or clinical problem need to wear "translation" gear when they listen to drug makers and their associates report on their findings. In this case with Crestor, this is what a 50% reduction in heart attack and strokes mean:

Now, guess which phrase or "punch line" they are going to use in the ads you will be seeing on TV about Crestor?

These drug companies have repeatedly and all too successfully scared the public with statistical "twists", choosing not to report a critical piece of statistic. What really matters is the number needed to treat (NNT). In this case, you will need to be treating 95 persons for 2 years with Crestor in order to prevent a single event (heart attack or stroke) with this drug!

We all can do much better than that by simply eating cholesterol-lowering foods, exercising, and cooperating with our natural healing processes. Not only can we avoid cardiovascular problems, we would also avoid the side effects that cause more diseases - a situation that the "drug pushers" appear to consider normal "collateral" (cholesterol) damage.

Lucrative does not mean healthy

While this high cholesterol war has been very profitable for the food and drug industries, there is "no benefit to public health," according to Anthony Calpo in an article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. He argues that the apparent benefit of a reduction in CVD fatalities is simply due to better heart attack detection and resuscitation techniques.

This is quite true as seen from recent reports comparing health and longevity among industrialized countries. While the United States may be the leader in medical technology, there are 22 other countries ahead of us in longevity and overall health. Why?

• It is more lucrative to provide medical care than to promote prevention by health education
• Natural remediation is also dubbed as "quackery". Even if a certain food is found to cure or prevent a disease, you cannot say that. FDA regulations forbid such claims. Oranges prevent scurvy, but shhh! Don't say that, you could get in trouble.

So doctors may continue to think that cholesterol lowering drugs will take care of my high cholesterol because (for the moment) this is how our medical and pharmaceutical economies run. Thank goodness, I maintain a 143 mg/dl total cholesterol using only food and a healthy lifestyle. I'm winning this war. Join me.