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The Real Dr. Steven Horvitz's avatar

Nice write up John.

You left out the absolute risk reductions for statins and only mentioned the relative risk reductions.

All cause mortality was mentioned in your article for BA, but I didn’t see it for statins.

I think we all know this is a ploy to make billions more on a drug that doesn’t touch all cause mortality.

I look at it like getting flood insurance in a mountain that has no water, but neglecting to do anything to prevent a fire that starts on the mountain because all the trees and brush are kindling.

Have you looked deeper into the mechanisms of cholesterol and heart disease to see that it is not a direct causal link but instead associated with heart disease? Changing the diet/lifestyle factors often change the cholesterol numbers and the insulin resistance and metabolic inflammation that is more the primary cause of heart disease.

But Big Pharma and their FDA buddies them wouldn’t have billions to make and power to control if the truth about cholesterol really came out.

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Odette Hélie's avatar

Hello, I am deeply shaken by this post. It has been established that statins have close to no effect for primary prevention (vast majority of thise who are prescribed statins,) and a modest one in secondary prevention. The effect is due to anti-inflammatory action and not lowering of cholesterol, (the effect is observable before cholesterol goes down). Also, for the cholesterol hypothesis to work, multiple ad hoc side hypothesis are necessary which does not reflect well on the central one !!! Very bad science indeed...Dr Malcolm Kendricks has proposed a simple and biologically plausible mechanism that can explain why rate of hearth disease goes up in various diseases and contexts that do not have any connexion between them . He has a blog and has published many books, namely The plot tickens. He has a very deep knowledge and respect of the scientific method. It's a must and fun read for every cardiologist.

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