Would I consider a statin if my cholesterol was
out of whack?I made that decision about 5 years
ago.I opted for Red Yeast Rice from SwansonVitamins and have never been sorry.
Red Yeast Rice is actually a milder form of statin.
It also has phytosterols.It works considerably
better than Lipitor.My total cholesterol before
Red Yeast Rice was approx 270 and now irt runs
about 180.Does cholesterol really make a difference?I'd rather be safe than sorry.
Are statins safe?Usually.Is Red Yeast Rice safe?
I've never heard of one case of anyone being harmed by Red Yeast Rice.I personally reccomend the Red Yeast Rice product from
SwansonVitamins.
comment: Statins are derived from fermented rice which is a food.Medications that are derived from foods aren't supposed to be patentable.Another case of FDA helping
big pharma?Hmmm...
Eddie

Red Yeast Rice has the same side effects of statins.



At least when you're on Statins your doctor is checking your liver enzymes...

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/her...edyeastside.htm

why Nancy is that hard to believe?? It is a spiff, my friends job is to get doctors to write scripts for their drugs, His company gives incentives to their workers to push these drugs?

Hell, I used to sell booze.. I always got spiffs from the companies I represented.

You are absolutely correct about Red Yeast Rice..

There are better compounds out there..

Sorry about all the bad punctuation and such..I usually have my 2 year old boy on my lap..

Because kick backs are illegal.

My doctor talked about atorvastatin before the results were in. He was away when the results came (LDL 122). He was planning to put me on a 'protocol'. I saw an older substitute doctor who told me to eat fruits and veggies, ground flax seed, get some exercise, and go hear Dr. Fuhrman speak. I started Fuhrman's nutrition program, and in about 70 days lost 34 lbs, dropped LDL to 102, dropped TG hugely, kept HDL at 36, brought FG from 128 to 101, A1c was 6.2 . I thought victory was in the bag, but after my second round of tests, my original doctor prescribed metformin, atorvastatin and ramipril (for bp) anyway.

He has told me that I would likely be off metformin after one calendar year on it.

But he said there are additional benefits that atorvastatin and ramipril have for kidney health, and gave no indication that I would come off these meds. It seems to me inappropriate to stay on these when the main symptoms are gone. For all I know it is illegal. I did some searching and found something about atorvastatin protecting kidney patients from heart disease, but that is a far cry from what he told me. I was under the impression he was telling me these two drugs are specifically good for kidneys. Sounds bizarre really. If they are that good they should be billed as such. OMG we should all be taking them!

Well I see the drug thing being short term really. Three months or six or a year doesn't much matter to me but I see myself eliminating them soon, possibly needing one or another much later in life.

Anyhow these drugs have not been very harmful. The metformin may have brought my FG down by oh 3 to 5 points, and slowed the rate of gluconeogenesis thence helping me with weight loss, and saving amino acids for amino acid jobs. I noticed that my circulation improved about a week after I started the atorvastatin, which made it easier to take samples for glucose. Blood pressure came down with the ramipril - that was real comforting - and it likely helped with the improvement in circulation.

So in sum, a short stint with drugs does not worry me much. I am seeing no bad side effects. What does worry me is my physician's drugs first attitude. Diet and exercise dwarfs the drugs in both their immediate impact on my health, and the fact that they are part of the real cure (if there is one for T2D). I should say that when I was nearly half way to goal weight I was nearly half way to goal LDL and more than half way to goal FG. So it could have been done without drugs too.

Every single doctor I see, from dermatologist to gynecologist, sees that I take Lipitor and approves wholeheartedly of it. They take statins themselves and they think they are the wonder drugs of the century. When I exercised daily, I thought that my lipid profile was excellent. But it was not enough - my doc still prescribed a statin. I'm still living with that and find it an easy thing to do. My lo-carbing is for my weight, not my lipids.

A lot of people do take statins, and seem to have no ill effects. I wish I knew the answer lol.

Nancy,
Its called incentives..nothing illegal about it.

If you do decide to take Statins, you absolutley should supplement with Coq10..at least 60mgs a day.

Doctors don't get paid for prescribing drugs. If you can prove otherwise, I'll change my mind. They get money from drug companies in other ways, like "speaking fees" for addressing other doctors on conditions that include the use of the pharma's drugs, they get sent on "educational "junkets that include seminars on conditions that use the pharma's drugs. But they simply do not get paid for prescribing drugs.

Kickbacks, incentives, pay-offs, bribes, influence pedaling, persuasive offers...... All the same thing.... Legal or illegal, it is always immoral (in my opinion, of course)......

I am not on statins, but can't recommend what I am currently doing until my blood tests on 8/01..... I am hoping I will have success with taking a Reishi Mushroom pill twice daily and drinking Panta Tea once each day... Both help lower cholesterol and blood pressure, supposedly. My blood pressure, which I can check at home has dropped from 140/90 to 120/70, so I am hopeful, it has lowered my cholesterol also... We'll soon see and I will post my results here, good or bad... I've actually had a few blood pressure readings at 112/68, which I've never had so low in all my life and I feel great!

Well, a new study came out linking statins to cancer: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=342747

Daryl, do your own research. Go read up on them. Ask yourself questions like:

1) What is the chance that a statin will prevent me from having a first heart attack? (Assuming you haven't had one)

2) What are the side-effects? Are they being effectively reported back to the manufacturer. Remember Avandia? Well, turns out the side effects were never reported back because people didn't know what to look for.

3) Is there another way to accomplish this without taking the Statin?

4) What if I take Statins and I don't really need them? See http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com You can have a very high cholesterol and not have any heart disease at all.

I know there's a big tug to turn over all control to your doctor because they're an authority figure or perhaps they're friendly and nice and concerned. But you need to be logical and think about how long ago your doctor went to school, how good is your doctor keeping up with new information or is he just following the pack because everyone else does it. And how much of his continuing education is provided by drug companies (probably all of it). That's why YOU have to be the one to make the decisions.

Unfortunately I see a lot of times where patients are MUCH better informed than their doctors about diseases and treatments. But the Internet is the great leveler of information. Just choose your sources wisely.

On your last post..... well said Nancy....

Only if I were a male who had had a heart attack. Then, their ability to fight inflammation seems to improve your odds of avoiding a repeat.

My Dr had me on a high dose of lovaststin for over 2 years...I had terrible side effects of extreme fatigue and weakness, muscle damage I am still recovering from. In fact, I would say statins almost did me in. And my doctor still denies it had anything to do with the statin.

Several major research studies have now shown that women do not benefit in any way from taking statins, and should not be taking them.

BTW, it was on the spacedoc.net site that I first stumbled across the fact that red yeast rice is a statin, with the same potential side effects. That's why I won't take herbal teas and supplements I'm not familiar with that I hear of on this board (like Mai kwai dong tea or whatever), because even if I do my own research, how do I know I'll look in the right place to find the info?

I forgot to mention one thing about assessing your risk improvement, make sure you look at absolute risk and not relative risk. When you're looking at .02 and .04, .04 is 200%... it's still a teeny number though. Apply those risks to 100,000 people and you'll find there's 1 or 2 people out of that 100,000 people who are affected. Figure out relative versus absolute risk and things look a whole lot different.

Oh yeah, Dr. Eades had a posting about this:
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=639