Thousands of patients refuse to take statins

Only one in three patients who need pills agree to start using them following routine check-ups 

.Only one in three patients requiring statins are prescribed them by GPs
.Four-fifths of patients fail to show up for their mid-life health 'MOT'
.The MOTs assess the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type two diabetes
.Patients are should to be invited into their surgery to fill out a risk survey

Thousands of patients are refusing to take statins even though they are at high risk of heart attacks and strokes, research has found.
Only one in three patients judged to need the cholesterol lowering-pills is prescribed them following routine check-ups.
The study also found that four-fifths of adults are not showing up to their midlife ‘health MOT’, which assesses their risk of long-term illnesses.

Full story here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Why should that be ? considering statins are considered to be a panacea for all ills you would have thought people would be happy to take them, or maybe they don't believe in the hype from big pharma funded studies.

Heres a question
My Cholesterol levels have never been excellent, and border between good and bad, about the 5 mark.
Earlier this year I had an angiogram as I suffer from an erratic heart beat, and my Cardiologist was not happy with a stress E.C.G he performed.
All was well and the only problem he found was that at the very ends of the heart vessels there was some "furring" that was a result of Cholesterol build up over the years.
He advised that taking a statin in a low dose (10mg)a day would stop the future build up.
He did also say that it was not a "Drain Cleaner" and the existing furring would never disappear, but my overall cholesterol levels would improve.
I opted to take his advise and have not had any side effects at all, and my overall cholesterol has improved now 4.
Would you have followed his advice ?

To answer your question. No, I wouldn't have followed his advice, but the main reason for that is because I am a woman and statins have been shown to be less effective for women.

Other reasoning (which may well be wrong, but it's my own opinion) would be that to my mind 5 is actually a better overall total cholesterol figure than 4. We need enough cholesterol for our hearts to function. I too had an erratic heart beat for several years, and this has been corrected by a procedure done in hospital a couple of years ago. If it goes out of rhythm now I take a dose of a magnesium supplement (advised by a naturopath, not a cardiologist) and this puts it back into rhythm within 5 minutes.

As regards the furring I have always believed this was more likely to be due to man made fats (margarine etc) and sugar than cholesterol.

Have a look at the link Graham put up a few days ago. Particularly the chapter Myth 4, page 65.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/486704

The other thing I meant to say was that to my mind there are 2 types of side effects of any drug.

1. The kind that only happen while you are taking the drug and are documented on the leaflet, eg muscle pains, fatigue. Any one may or may not get these. If you suffer badly from them you can always stop taking the drug.

2. The kind that really worry me are those we don't yet know of that may occur after a few years of taking the drugs. I read a couple of reports that stains could be implicated in developing macular degeneration, certain cancers, kidney problems and yes heart problems too. I just wouldn't want to mess up several organs (including the one I was trying to protect) by taking statins.

Here's one of the articles I read a few weeks ago

http://drsircus.com/medicine/run-from-your-statin-recommending-cardiologist

I understand that many people take statins and are happy to do so. But you asked for our own opinion, and now you know mine.

RANDBURG wrote:Heres a question
My Cholesterol levels have never been excellent, and border between good and bad, about the 5 mark.
Earlier this year I had an angiogram as I suffer from an erratic heart beat, and my Cardiologist was not happy with a stress E.C.G he performed.
All was well and the only problem he found was that at the very ends of the heart vessels there was some "furring" that was a result of Cholesterol build up over the years.
He advised that taking a statin in a low dose (10mg)a day would stop the future build up.
He did also say that it was not a "Drain Cleaner" and the existing furring would never disappear, but my overall cholesterol levels would improve.
I opted to take his advise and have not had any side effects at all, and my overall cholesterol has improved now 4.
Would you have followed his advice ?

In short no I would not take statins though in my case I'm intolerant of them anyway, that said it's an individual choice based on what you believe from your own research.

RANDBURG wrote:Heres a question
My Cholesterol levels have never been excellent, and border between good and bad, about the 5 mark.
Earlier this year I had an angiogram as I suffer from an erratic heart beat, and my Cardiologist was not happy with a stress E.C.G he performed.
All was well and the only problem he found was that at the very ends of the heart vessels there was some "furring" that was a result of Cholesterol build up over the years.
He advised that taking a statin in a low dose (10mg)a day would stop the future build up.
He did also say that it was not a "Drain Cleaner" and the existing furring would never disappear, but my overall cholesterol levels would improve.
I opted to take his advise and have not had any side effects at all, and my overall cholesterol has improved now 4.
Would you have followed his advice ?

I would not especially since a recent study has shown that LDL-c is inversely related to all cause mortality and that this is especially true for those of us who are over 65. In other words a higher LDL-c is associated with lower all cause mortality.