Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Admitted: Statins Cause Diabetes

About four years ago, while waiting for a computer, I picked up a copy of the Philadelphia Trumpet (an obscure church-sponsored news magazine) and noticed an article that mentioned that statin drugs had been linked to diabetes. I noticed this because a friend who'd survived open-heart surgery had just been ordered to take a statin drug, although he'd complained of no new symptoms since the surgery and although he'd been keeping just outside the borderline of diabetes for years.

Sure enough, he's been handicapped by diabetes ever since. And I've not been able to track down that issue of the Philadelphia Trumpet--it's a free handout, so nobody keeps track of copies. And when I looked for the information on the Internet, search engines didn't find it. Maybe the Philadelphia Trumpet reporters were mistaken.

And my friend seemed to adjust to the idea that he'd become diabetic and "old." And handicapped. I don't think he'll ever be disabled. One day on a job he'll take a break and be found dead in the bathroom, and his family will be sad but not surprised. But he's become handicapped. Older, slower, vulnerable to infections, one might say fragile...he's even repeated a few conversations that he'd had with the same person, only five or ten years ago. I catch myself thinking of him as part of the older generation rather than mine.

Well, finally...Newsmax got the report from Reuters: the FDA just admitted that statin drugs cause diabetes and other symptoms. "'We have known for three or four years,' [Dr. Steven] Nissen said," but apparently the AMA has been suppressing this information as long as it was possible to market these pills. Doctors who ignore and suppress key information like this, or like the risk of violent insanity associated with antidepressants, or even like the risk of stomach ulcers associated with frequent use of aspirin, really tick me off. I think the side effects need to be well publicized by anyone who sells pharmaceuticals.

http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/health_stories/statin_warnings_FDA/2012/02/28/436590.html?s=al&promo_code=E4AC-1

If you are over age seventy, and had open-heart surgery even while you were a thin, at least half-time vegetarian who exercised regularly, the benefits of statins may arguably outweigh the risks of Crestor, Lipitor, and other popular one-a-day pills. If you are younger and can do more to control your weight and blood pressure, the benefits of taking control of your own risk of a heart attack definitely outweigh the risks of these medications.

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