Positive Trial for Statins / Barry Groves book

[Guest guest]

I know the people on this group (including myself) are not big fans of statins.

However,

the New England Journal of Medicine today published a new study which will

almost

certainly expand the use of statins into new populations.

This study looked at patients who were apparently " healthy " on several

dimensions (no

high cholesterol, for example) but who had high hsCRP, a measure of

inflammation. One

group was randomized to receive 20 mg of rosuvastatin daily. The trial was ended

early

because of favorable results; treatment lasted an average of 2 years, with some

up to 4

years.

The bottom line for me would be that 190 of the statin users died, compared to

235 of the

non-stain users. This reaches statistical significance at conventional levels.

Problems

related to heart disease were lower by a greater degree in the statin users.

Figure 2

showed the heart disease benefit accrued to all subgroups considered.

Conspiracy theorists might note that the trial was sponsored by the

manufacturer, but it

seems to be well-done to me.

The main adverse event was more newly diagnosed diabetes in the statin group.

Diabetes

wasn't a focus of the study; this just comes from physician reports. An

accompanying

editorial discusses some issues of whether to extend hsCRP screening to more

populations

and whether statin treatment is financially effective.

Personally, I follow a synthesis of the WAPF and paleolithic diets, so my hsCRP

of 0.16

mg/L is far below the entry threshold hsCRP of 2.0 mg/L for participants in the

study. I

am not going to sign up for statin therapy. But perhaps the dangers of statins

are

outweighed by the benefits for those who will not adopt a diet that reduces

inflammation.

In other news, I read most of the new book, Trick or Treat, by Barry Groves. It

advocates a

high-fat diet. It seemed pretty comprehensive and heavily influenced by the WAPF

advice.

On heart disease, he covered more types of disease / adverse outcomes than list

member

Masterjohn, but seems less knowledgeable about atherosclerosis in

particular.