No one would argue that statins are totally worthless for all people.
However, as author Jimmy Moore writes in his bestselling book, Cholesterol Clarity: “statins have become a doctor’s first line of defense; the best resort, not the last resort… despite the fact that these drugs are being [sold] as a grand cure all, they have done nothing to stop the rise of heart disease in this country: it is still the number one killer among both men and women in the United States and is expected to become a worldwide epidemic by 2020. Instead of prescribing an artificial way to make cholesterol numbers merely look good on paper, maybe doctors and medical researchers should start paying attention to the underlying reasons why cholesterol numbers go up in the first place and what implications that is having on health of their patients.”
A study in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine analyzed statin use and found numbers that radically disagreed with the rosy assessments of people like Pfizer’s Bryant and Dr. Milani. Of 100,000 participants in a study, 17% reported side effects. The vast majority of people who suffered – two-thirds – quit Lipitor because of the intensity of the side effect, despite no doubt being educated by their doctors that they needed to take statins to reduce their risk for cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Duane Graveline, a longtime critic of Lipitor, who wrote a book called Lipitor, Thief of Memory, blames his transient global amnesia (TGA) and subsequent cognitive decline on statins. On his website, he writes: “I took Lipitor in 1999 and 2000 but I soon realized the adverse reactions involved far more than impaired cognition, including personality change, myopathy, neuropathy, and a chronic neuromuscular degeneration similar to ALS.”
He continues: “the pathway to cholesterol synthesis is … shared by many extremely important biochemical substances, including Coenzyme Q10, inhibition of which was the cause of many of the side effects. One cannot reduce cholesterol by the use of statins without simultaneously blocking these other biochemicals sharing the mevalonate pathway.”
He also writes: “Five years ago, when I started this research [into the adverse side effects of Lipitor] reported side effects were primarily ‘a few aches and pains and occasional liver intolerance,’ arguably an acceptable price for society to pay for such a beneficial class of drugs. No longer does this even come close to the truth. Of great concern today are the growing numbers of adverse drug reports associated with use of Lipitor and the other stronger statin drugs, reflecting dysfunction from many different body systems.”
Dr. Graveline argues that Lipitor and other statin drugs can cause “a broad range of devastating side effects… The mevalonate pathway, critical to the statins’ inhibition of cholesterol, is the pathway used by many other vital body systems… Side effects in muscle, nerve, and memory functions are not some extremely rare, almost unique problem. They are all but inevitable with the use of mevalonate inhibitors.”
Dr. Graveline is not alone in his thinking. Other doctors and authors, such as Dr. Malcom Kendrick (author of “The Great Cholesterol Con”), Dr. Stephen Sinatra, and Dr. Dwight C. Lundell, a prominent Arizona heart surgeon, have all vocally and aggressively criticized statin therapy.
But these criticisms of statins do not even begin to scratch the surface of this debate. Stay tuned for more shocking revelations in upcoming posts on this topic. For help with your case, call the Davis & Crump team now at 800-277-0300.
