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The above video is obviously “tongue-in-cheek”, and my apologies for the sarcasm, but REALLY bad ideas like giving statin drugs to children deserve to be ridiculed. Yes, childhod obesity is a growing problem and obesity does predispose people of all ages to a long list of chronic health problems. There is no doubt that steps need to be taken by parents to help their kids maintain a healthy weight. But the risks of statin drugs, which are really only now being recognized in adults, could be severe in children whose bodies are still developing. In my opinion, instead of pushing pharmaceuticals as the answer, the medical profession would serve its patients far better by stressing the importance of healthy diet and exercise habits.
I know it is not always easy to get your kids to eat healthy foods. In some cases, it may be difficult to get them to exercise and be active too. It’s even harder when parents fail to set a good example. So parents, if you don’t want your kids to have to suffer with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc., you need to get your own health in order first. If you won’t do it for your own benefit, I hope you will do it for the benefit of your children. Or would you rather just give them the drugs and hope they don’t cause too many side-effects? The choice is yours.
If you’re ready to start eating better and exercising, but you don’t know where to start, I offer you my FREE ebook:
Although the name suggests that it’s a weight-loss book (and it is), it is also a generally healthy approach to eating and exercise, whether or not you need to lose weight. If your current lifestyle is really unhealthy, I don’t recommend that you try to switch over to the program in the ebook right away. Instead, choose one change at a time to implement and get your whole family involved. Maybe it’s just cutting back on soda. Maybe it’s getting SOME exercise. Maybe it’s eating more vegetables. Every little bit counts, and getting started NOW is the important thing. Regardless of what’s going on in your life, start making changes right now and gradually implement more and more changes. You’ll be surprised by how much better you feel. If you get your kids to participate too, you may be surprised at how much better they behave, how much better their overall mood is, and you may even see improvements in their grades and school work. It can be tough going at first, but by making small changes over time, your kids will notice that they feel better too, and then getting them to participate in further changes gets easier over time.
While cholesterol continues to be portrayed in the media and in advertisements as a deadly poison to be eliminated at all costs, the real story is gradually making its way to world - and it’s not what the drug companies want you to think! Here’s a couple of other perspectives on cholesterol from the blogosphere…
Deficiency in (bad) blood cholesterol can be even more dangerous, than high cholesterol level, claim Japanese scientists. They have found, that maintaining a low cholesterol level for a long time or decrease of cholesterol level …
High triglyceride levels raise blood levels of the bad LDL cholesterol and lower blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol, which increases heart attack risk. 1) Lancet 2001;357:505-08. 2) European Journal of Cancer Prevention, 1999, …
Patients who take the cholesterol drug torcetrapid, intended to increase levels of HDL (â€goodâ€) cholesterol and lower LDL (â€badâ€) cholesterol levels, have a 58 percent higher risk of death than similar patients who do not take the drug, …
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more cholesterol updates.
Since the explosion in the number of prescriptions for statin drugs, I’ve noticed a trend in the patients I see in my practice. People who suddenly develop joint and/or muscle pains without any history of trauma or unusual stress, infection, or toxic exposure tend to have one thing in common: they are taking statin drugs to lower their cholesterol.
This is primarily true in cases where the patient develops pain all over, as opposed to a specific muscle or joint, but it has been my experience that the onset of even localized unexplained pains can sometimes be traced to taking statins.
Many of these patients come in pre-diagnosed (either by themselves or another doctor) as having arthritis, fibromyalgia, bursitis, etc. because those are the most common diagnoses that fit the pain patterns these people are having. But the sudden onset with no immediately apparent cause is a tip-off that statins may be involved.
The existence of statin-induced muscle damage and pain syndromes is acknowledged by the drug manufacturers; however, the official stance is that this is a rare problem. But my experience says otherwise.
In fact the problem is so common, now when I see a patient who has pain all over, I usually find myself asking when they started taking the statin drugs rather than asking if they are taking statins. In the vast majority of cases, the response to that question is that the patient started on statins just before they started developing the pain. In a smaller group, they may have been on statins for several years, or may have recently changed from one statin drug to another, but in almost all cases of sudden onset, widespread pains, they are taking statins.
Now that might be circumstantial evidence, but in those patients who stop taking the cholesterol drugs, my expereince has been that nearly all of them report symptom improvement within a few days. Of course, one might argue that the resolution of the pain after getting off the statins is circumstantial too, but if I’m on that jury, I’m going to render a guilty verdict.
Some people do just fine on statins and do not have any significant pain or other side-effects, but for those who do develop statin-related pains, it is a sign of potentially dangerous muscle damage and my recommendation is to discuss getting off the drugs with the prescribing physician. What should you do if your physician isnt willing to even try taking you off the drugs? My advice is to find another physician. At the very least, such pain can be very debilitating and can severely diminish one’s quality of life and your doctor needs to recognize that the harm the drugs are obviously doing probably outweighs the benefits they might be providing. One of my patients told her doctor that she was quitting the statins and he told her that she had to keep taking them in order to prevent a heart attack, to which she replied that she’d rather die of a heart attack than live like she had been with the statin-related pain (and she meant it!).Â
Ultimately, high cholesterol in and of itself is actually not the big danger that we’ve been led to believe anyway (more on that in a future post), so for those who do experience statin-related pain, in my opinion the damage from the statins usually far outweighs the benefits they may provide.Â
