A couple of articles that you might find controversial and thought 

provoking.



The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology 

on 12th November released new treatment guidelines departing radically 

 from the past four decades of allegiance to cholesterol as the main 

cause of heart disease and stroke that will result in a large increase 

in the number of individuals receiving statins - 

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2013/11/11/01.cir.0000437740.48606.d1



This is how the New York Times put it:

First, the guidelines have moved away from achieving target cholesterol 

levels.Americans have long been urged to focus on their laboratory 

numbers. Many people are obsessive about checking their cholesterol 

levels and pursuing even better numbers. Doctors have been told to 

focus on these numbers and, in some cases, the quality of their care 

was assessed by the percentage of their patients with low cholesterol 

levels.Those days are over. The new guidelines recognize that for 

patients who have exhausted lifestyle efforts and are considering drug

therapy, the question is not whether a drug makes your lab tests 

better, but whether it lowers your risk of heart disease and stroke. 

Studies over the past several years have shown that improving your lab 

profile with drugs is not equivalent to lowering your heart risks.



One of the most influential cardiologists in the world, Steven Nissen, 

had this to say: “The evidence was never there” for the LDL targets. 

Past committees “made them up out of thin air”.  Does this amount to a 

long overdue adjustment  to the reality of cholesterol’s key importance 

to cellular physiology and metabolism and the realisation that the 

benefit of statins probably has nothing to do with cholesterol 

reduction but rather is due to their anti-inflammatory and 

immunomodulatory properties?



As part of their guidelines, they produce a risk calculator. If your 

risk of heart attack or stroke is greater than 7.5% over the next 10 

years, you should take a statin for the rest of your life. 

Unfortunately, it has been temporarily suspended as it appears to 

seriously overestimate the risk much to  AHA's & ACC's embarrassment.



Before wider use of statins in primary prevention it is worth looking 

at a recent paper by two Irish cardiovascular surgeons who concluded 

that statins may do more harm than good for many otherwise healthy 

people.This paper has received scant attention from the UK media.

The Ugly Side of Statins. Systemic Appraisal of the Contemporary 

Un-Known Unknowns : Sherif Sultan, Niamh Hynes, Open Journal of 

Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, 2013, 3, 179-185   DOI: 

10.4236/ojemd.2013.33025



See also a most apt and amusing cartoon strip in yesterday's New York 

Times. It stops short of statinating the water supply(what a reckless 

thought)!                                   

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/the-strip.html#1



The question is, will we see a fall in number of cholesterol and lipid 

profiles requests in the future?  .



Roy Fisher





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