We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (Top 10 non-generic and generic prescription drugs) to bring you this, what appears to be a concerted effort on the part of Big Pharma to keep their precious statins high on the list of prescribed drugs. (can you blame them? Between Lipitor and Simvistatin you’re looking at 109.2 million prescriptions and $7.4 billion in sales per year!).
In case you haven’t heard, statins and big pharma took it on the chin in a new study from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The results showed niacin was significantly more effective at reducing carotid artery plaque than statins alone. In fact, results showed plaque continuing to grow in the statins only group while regressing in the niacin group. I’m not going to detail the study and author’s conclusions, Dr. Eades has done a wonderful job of that.
I’m not even going to get into whether or not reducing LDL prevents heart attacks. I’m taking a different approach.
Now, a normal thinking individual might conclude niacin as a better alternative to statins in preventing cardiovascular disease. Such as Dr. William Davis over at the Heart Scan blog. He’s not really normal thinking, more like forward thinking (WAY forward compared to his colleagues) and he’s been banging on statins and tooting the niacin horn for a while.
What really has me perturbed is a concerted effort to keep precious statins at the top of the prescription list. For example, a Google news search today (11/20/09) showed 800+ stories on the search term: statin+niacin. Scrolling through the headlines of those on the first page, you see phrases like, “Vitamin B niacin offers no extra benefit to statin therapy,” “Niacin may not help arteries,” “No benefit for statin patients,” and on and on.
Another example is this, a press release published November 20, 2009, which relates study details showing an approximate 1/3 drop in “bad” cholesterol levels in the US from 1999 to 2006 (study abstract here). The last sentence in the first paragraph sums it up nicely,
“But a high percentage of adults still are not being screened or treated for high cholesterol levels.”
I’m not sure what they mean by high. As you’ll see in my next post, about 1 in 2 adults in the US are taking a statin. You would think this one-third drop would be cause for celebration, and it is among the statins crowd. But while there is a significant drop in the number of cardiovascular-related deaths, incidence hasn’t decreased.
So the question isn’t whether or not statins work. They reduce LDL cholesterol but they don’t reduce the incidence of heart disease. So why take them? Why prescribe them? It’s like the statinators and policy makers can’t see the forest for the trees.
The unfortunate (for them) news on the effectiveness of niacin, the quick-to-the-table message parroted by the media, that the incidence of cardiovascular disease has not decreased and the $7.4 billion cash cow of statins is enough to make one skeptical, or disgusted.
Your thoughts?
This post is part of the Kathleen Show, Prevention not Rx.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by bsekula: Statins and Niacin…A concerted effort? http://ow.ly/EkSn...
Posted by uberVU - social comments on December 1st, 2009.
Very interesting article, isn’t it always the case that the all-natural supplement never passes through the media. Sad but true…
Hi, my name is Jacob and I run a company called A1supplements.com. We are always looking for great sites, like yours, to add to our network of affiliates. We are also always looking for writers like yourself, to provide us with original content that we can turn into articles.
Posted by Jacob N Kurtz on December 8th, 2009.
i love your blog always read it could you post more health infos
Posted by Julietta Benavente on March 7th, 2010.