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  #1   ^
Old Sat, Aug-27-16, 05:11
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Plan: P:E/DDF
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Default The Truth about Statins and Heart Disease

Catching up on pocasts, I just learned that there has been a firestorm over a recent People's Pharmacy podcast about Statins. Dr. David Diamond, famous for his YouTube talks on heart disease and the cholesterol controversy, was paired with Dr Steven Nissan of Cleveland Clinic. Critiques from both about the new Risk Calculator, Dr Nissan recommends an alternative the Reynolds Risk Calculator.

Dr Diamond has posted a defense of his research, which has links to the podcast, (free download is limited in time) and links to a slew of papers that support that his weight and abnormal lipids were caused by excess carbohydrates. If you want a good list of recent research on heart disease, check out this post and all its links.

Dr. Nissan also criticized Dr Malhotra in the recent NYT Well blog above in media.

http://psychology.usf.edu/faculty/d...amond/rebuttal/

Last edited by JEY100 : Sat, Aug-27-16 at 06:38.
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  #2   ^
Old Fri, Sep-09-16, 06:32
bluesinger's Avatar
bluesinger bluesinger is offline
Doing My Best
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Plan: LC/CancerRecovery
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Location: Nevada Desert, USA
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The Statin whitewash continues: from The Guardian
Quote:
“Controversy over the safety and efficacy of statins has harmed the health of potentially thousands of people in the UK,” he wrote in a comment published with the review. In six months after the publication of “disputed research and tendentious opinion” on the side-effects of statins in 2013, a study estimated that over 200,000 patients stopped taking a statin. It predicted there would be 2,000 extra heart attacks and strokes over the next decade as a result.

The Lancet was taking a stand, he said, “because of our experience of MMR. We saw in a very painful way the consequences of publishing a paper which had a huge impact on confidence in a safe and effective vaccine.

“We learned lessons from that episode and those lessons need to be widely promulgated. They are lessons for all journals and all scientists.”
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  #3   ^
Old Sat, Sep-10-16, 03:13
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
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Progress: 134%
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Even bigger firestorm over this review in The Lancet. It is a review of the existing studies, none new, many of those were industry sponsored and after years of requests, the raw data in those industry studies has still not been released. One comment "The Trialists are marking their own homework"

Quote:
Media reports the UK during the last 24 hours have suggested that the benefits of statins have been underestimated and the harms have been exaggerated. These reports are based on research done by the clinical trials service unit at Oxford University. The first thing to note is that although this research group is part of Oxford University, it is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. The group is basically a research facility for the drugs companies.


Quote:
In fact, the CTSU and Prof. Collins have for some time now been making claims about statins that no one else can substantiate because they refuse to let anyone have access to their data. The worrying thing is that the claims that the CTSU and Prof. Collins make do not in any way at all fit with everything else we know about statins. For example, the published article in the Lancet and the press release that accompanied it states that if 10,000 people took a statin for 5 years in primary prevention, 500 major vascular events would be prevented (5% absolute risk reduction). Well, that is quite different from what the actual clinical trial data tells us. (Continues in Statin Nation article)


http://www.bbc.com/news/health-37306736

http://www.statinnation.net/blog/20...rated-yet-again

http://www.christopherjamesclark.co...lts-on-statins/


JAMA and BMJ editors also question the Lancet review: http://cardiobrief.org/2016/09/08/s...-with-evidence/

Last edited by JEY100 : Sat, Sep-10-16 at 05:30.
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  #4   ^
Old Sun, Sep-11-16, 10:20
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Plan: P:E/DDF
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Dr Malcolm Kendrick's long blog post covers the important papers and responses by other editors to Dr Rory Colllins' Lancet article.

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2016/...-first-century/
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  #5   ^
Old Fri, Sep-16-16, 05:26
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Plan: P:E/DDF
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Progress: 134%
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Default

From this morning's MedPage, Cardio Brief by Larry Husten :

Quote:
The Lancet Versus BMJ: A Dispatch From the Statin Wars
The editors of the two top U.K. medical journals are in a bitter fight


The editors of the two top medical journals in the U.K. are at war over statins.
The bitter fight has its origins in the 2014 publication in the BMJ of two articles that were highly critical of statins. Rory Collins, MD, of Oxford University, a leading statin trialist, demanded that the BMJ retract the article. After a lengthy investigation by an independent committee the BMJ declined to retract the articles, though it did issue corrections.

Last week the Lancet became involved when it published a 30 page review article by Collins and colleagues seeking to demonstrate that the benefits of statins have been underappreciated and the adverse effects of statins have been overstated by both the medical community and the public. In a related comment Lancet editor Richard Horton, FRCP, aligned himself with Collins and supported an effort by Collins and others to seek sanctions against the BMJ from COPE (the committee on publication ethics), decrying what he described as "COPE's refusal to investigate the growing concerns of senior U.K. scientists."
The latest salvo in the battle comes from the BMJ in response to Horton's comment.

In a statement issued on Thursday the BMJ said Horton's characterization of COPE's response was "inaccurate" and it published for the first time COPE documents relating to the controversy.
The documents from COPE, published online by the BMJ, make clear that a COPE panel did investigate the issue but did not agree with Collins and his supporters. The COPE panel "found that neither paper met the COPE criteria for retraction." COPE also rejected the idea that it was unethical or inappropriate to publish articles critical of statins: "Without having an opinion on one or other side of the debate on the use of statins and their side effects, it is clear that this is a topic on which there is a considerable range of opinion and no purpose is served by censoring either side of the debate."
"We hope that publication of the documents relating to the complaint will serve to correct the public record," said Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of BMJ. Godlee announced that she had also written to England's chief medical officer, Sally Davies, "asking her to set up an inquiry into the statins saga and an independent review of the evidence on statins."

The supporting documents released by the BMJ also clearly indicate that Collins refused invitations from Godlee to publish his concerns about the disputed papers in BMJ.
BMJ also published an editorial comment by Harlan Krumholz, MD, of Yale University on the statin controversy.
(Krumholz was a member of the independent BMJ committee that investigated whether the BMJ should retract the disputed 2014 articles.) Krumholz, though generally supportive of statins, points out limitations in the trials and calls for independent verification of the data. "In the end," he wrote, "the sharing of these data by the trialists may do more to advance their interpretation of the data and promote consensus than anything else they could do."
Also appearing on the BMJ website is a blog post by Richard Lehman, who questioned about the blithe dismissal of statin side effects. "Muscle pain and fatigability are not a figment of misattribution and public misinformation," he wrote. "They are too prevalent and recurrent in people who desperately want to stay on statins. Rather than discount a widely observed phenomenon, we should ask why there is such a mismatch with reporting in the trials."
Lehman further observed: "The main adverse effect of statins is to induce arrogance in their proponents. The evidence for this class of drugs is massive and the areas of controversy are quite small. Most of the current debate consists of throwing blame at the BMJ for creating public doubt about statins in two short articles. So it has become an argument about communicating evidence to the public and to individuals, and this is something the Lancet authors seem to think should be done by authoritative persuasion ..."
I have invited Rory Collins and Richard Horton to respond to the BMJ statement and will update this story as necessary.
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  #6   ^
Old Fri, Sep-16-16, 07:45
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Nancy LC Nancy LC is offline
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Wow, sounds like someone is deeply indebted to the pharma industry. I'm looking at you, Collins.
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  #7   ^
Old Fri, Nov-25-16, 07:58
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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The bitter fight continues with yet another Lancet article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ed-critics-say/

Lancet study on statins was 'fundamentally flawed', critics say

Quote:
A major Lancet study which backed the safety of statins was “fundamentally flawed” and underestimated the side-effects of the heart drugs, a group of medics has said.

The research published in September concluded the drugs help prevent around 80,000 major cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or strokes, every year.

Scientists said the drugs did far more harm than good, with too many patients having been put off taking them because of needless fears about side-effects.
It followed a long debate over the merits of the cholesterol-busting drugs, which are taken by around eight million Britons.

"While this research confirms the greater benefit of more intensive treatment, decisions on dosage require conversations between patients and their doctors
Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation"


But now a group of doctors has attacked the Lancet study. Writing in The Prescriber, a group of medics led by cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra criticised the way the Lancet research was carried out.

They said some of the data behind the trials had not been published, while some claims about the impact of the drugs on cholesterol were based on forecasts.

Lead author Dr Malhotra said “Decades of misinformation on cholesterol and the gross exaggeration of statin benefits with downplaying of side effects has likely led to the overmedication of millions of people across the world.”

“The lack of transparency in the prescription of statins is just one symptom of a broken system of healthcare where finance based medicine has trumped independent evidence and what is most important for patients.”

His views were backed by Harvard statin expert Dr John Abramson, Sir Richard Thompson, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, and Professor Sherif Sultan, president of the International Society for Vascular Surgery.

Statins
The new study suggests millions of patients could benefit from high doses of statins.
Statins reduce high levels of blood cholesterol, which is known to contribute to the stiffening and narrowing of arteries.

But they also trigger side-effects, including muscle pain, memory loss, depression, sexual difficulties and depression.

The Lancet study, conducted by Oxford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, analysed 20 years' worth of data.

It found just two per cent of patients suffer any side effects.

On Thursday night, leading heart doctors criticised the stance taken by Dr Malhotra, a long-time critic of statins.

Prof Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This paper combines data and opinion that risks confusing patients about the benefits and safety of their statins.

More in link above.


This article from the Telegraph, similar in other U.K. Press.
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  #8   ^
Old Fri, Nov-25-16, 08:16
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cotonpal cotonpal is online now
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On this day after Thanksgiving I am grateful that I know enough to just say no to the statin defenders. I keep hoping that these pro statin articles are the final shrieks of a dying monster. Certainly we don't want to risk confusing patients with the truth .

Jean
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  #9   ^
Old Fri, Nov-25-16, 09:15
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GreekRibs GreekRibs is offline
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Right, so my doc told me my cholesterol is high enough to warrant medication for it. I declined, stating I'll take my chances (heart disease does not run in my family) and I absolutely hate taking drugs of any kind. Hoping I'm on the right track...
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  #10   ^
Old Sat, Nov-26-16, 05:23
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
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Some of the other U.K. Papers on this article: https://www.dietdoctor.com/study-sh...mentally-flawed

The original article: http://www.prescriber.co.uk/news/cl...-risks-statins/

Added: Interview with Dr Malhotra on SkyNews. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AuhW4...eature=youtu.be

Last edited by JEY100 : Sun, Nov-27-16 at 05:07.
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