More bad news about statins
Last Updated Aug 2007
An article in the July 2007 Journal of the American College of Cardiology indicated
that patients who take statins have a slightly higher risk of cancer. Of course,
the outburst of outrage from drug companies was to be expected. After all, statin
drugs are the biggest-selling drugs of all time. The one thing these statin
apologists forgot to mention is that statins are the only drugs that can increase
the levels of arachidonic acid in the body. Increase arachidonic acid, and you
increase silent inflammation, the underlying cause of chronic diseases such as
cancer. This concern is echoed by the recent JELIS study out of Japan (Lancet
369: 1080 [2007]) that demonstrated that when 1.8 g of EPA is added on a daily
basis to people taking statins, they had a 20 percent reduction in cardiovascular
events compared to those taking statins and an olive oil placebo. Wait a minute,
what if people just took more fish oil and a lot fewer statins? Might their
likelihood of heart disease and cancer simultaneously decrease? Probably, but that
would be practicing good medicine, which will not happen in today's environment of
massive pharmaceutical advertising to the public and physicians.