I probably won’t be doing much with the blog this week besides answering comments. Work is piling up, I’ve got a speech to outline and write, plus my birthday is this week, which means we’re busy preparing for the party.
One brief rant, however: several people asked my opinion on the FDA banning trans fats. I’m sure you can guess how I feel about that. Same as with sugar … yes, trans fats are bad for you, and yes, we should educate people about why trans fats are bad for you. But if people want to consume trans fats anyway, that’s their business. Once you give the federal government the power to ban foods (or food-like substances) it decides you shouldn’t eat, you’re asking for trouble. Give it time, they’ll ban butter and bacon.
And now back to outlining that speech …
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Kind of off topic but here is some more hog wash. Here we go again…
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/11/13/us-doctors-urge-wider-use-cholesterol-drugs/
Ugh.
I wonder what is next…banning vegetable oils? I bet if restaurants were being forced to stop frying in canola oil or other bad oils, then so many would just go out of business. Why? They would be reluctant to go out and buy real butter, coconut oil, or lard because customers would become uncomfortable with eating there. I of course don’t like using those oils to cook with but it would make the economy fall apart worse than it already is. I am curious though what America’s health would be like if pot became legal.
I predict that if pot became legal, we’d have fewer drunk-driving accidents, fewer bar fights, fewer gang murders, and fewer people winding up in prison for selling a drug that’s less dangerous than alcohol to willing buyers.
I live in Washington. We don’t even have the guidelines for legal pot set up yet and already we feel the effects. Police dogs are no longer being trained to sniff out pot and officers no longer bother with people. In fact at Hempfest in Seattle the police showed up with Doritos. I haven’t heard about effects on prison population but it has to be an improvement to quit putting old hippies in jail and save the room for real criminals. I have heard from folks that the price has tanked to the point that dealers are getting out of the business.
Making a product illegal drives up the cost. That’s why Prohibition made the mob rich.
My definition of legal adulthood includes the right to buy and consume marijuana.
About 6 months ago I took some friends in town from Sweden to a dance club in downtown Atlanta. I would say that about 3/4 of the people there had imbibed in E and/or pot. At one point, an especially drunk guy tottered off a platform and crashed into the crowd, spilling at least a half-dozen drinks and knocking even more people down. I held my breath and started backing up to avoid the inevitable brawl. To my great surprise, they all just helped each other back up. I even saw several spontaneous hugs exchanged. Ha ha ha. I’ll take potheads over alcoholics any day!
I worked with a comedian who had a good bit about why potheads don’t get into brawls. It went something like this:
“Hey, you stepped on my toe! I’m going to kick your ass!”
“What?”
“I said I’m going to kick your ass!”
“Bummer, man. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you going to kick my ass?”
“Uh … I don’t remember. Do you?”
“No, man, sorry.”
“You want to get some Cheetos?”
“Okay, man, sure.”
Looks like the new twist is stroke prevention. I think this means that since there is now a new use for the drug, the patent can be renewed. I’m guessing that’s what this is all about.
That’s a good guess.
Perhaps that along with finding a new rationale for prescribing statins since the evidence is mounting that raised cholesterol numbers don’t equate to heart disease.
Bingo. So now they need another excuse to prescribe statins.
I’m not sure why but my comments are not appearing – I’ll try again 🙂
It’s all been said above about the new cholesterol recommendations – I await with great anticipation to your reply… I know there will be one!!
I apologize for the comments not showing up. They probably went in the spam folder — I don’t really understand how those filters work. I used to check it for legitimate comments, but then it started catching thousands of spam comments per day. I don’t have that much free time.
Others have already brought up the new broadened statin recommendation, but here’s another link
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/12/244815077/a-shift-in-cholesterol-advice-could-double-statin-use
Glad to hear you will commenting on the new cholesterol drug recommendations that will call for twice as many Americans to take statins.
From the article on the front page article in my newspaper: “Roughly half the cholesterol panel members have financial ties to the makers of heart drugs.”
Imagine if we held criminal court judges to the same standards: “I promise the vast sums of money I’ve received from drug cartels have nothing to do with this not guilty verdict.”
I was at least happy to see almost all the comments in the online edition of the story were blasting statins. The story included a sidebar on obesity with this nugget of “wisdom”:
“It is being overweight and obesity that are the real causes of heart attack and disease,” Nordestgaard, a professor and chief physician at Copenhagen University Hospital and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said in an e-mail. “Thus, you don’t need to examine for the metabolic syndrome to tell whether a person is at increased risk of heart attack. Just looking at them or measuring their body mass index is sufficient.”
Nevermind the pesky fact that marathon runners, well-known for being lean carbo-loaders, have MORE heart attacks than the general population.
Wow. Remind me to forbid my daughters from doing a student-exchange semester at Copenhagen University.
Scratch that. Sara would end up debating the goofball and kicking his ass.
Don’t some researchers (e.g., Peter Attia) suggest that it isn’t the overweight/obesity that causes health issues; it’s the body’s reactions to the underlying metabolic syndrome/insulin resistance that causes the weight issues and the diabetes. In fact, if I understood his theory, obesity may well be the body’s protective reaction to insulin resistance.
Correct. The idea is that we get fatter as a way of keeping blood sugar under control. When we stop getting fatter because we’ve more or less hit the limits of our ability to store fat, we lose that control.
one more time. Obesity is not an illness, obesity is a symptom.
Most docs are doing the medical equivalent of paint by number medicine. Barefoot doctors with powerful drugs; what could go wrong.
I wonder what is next…banning vegetable oils? I bet if restaurants were being forced to stop frying in canola oil or other bad oils, then so many would just go out of business. Why? They would be reluctant to go out and buy real butter, coconut oil, or lard because customers would become uncomfortable with eating there. I of course don’t like using those oils to cook with but it would make the economy fall apart worse than it already is. I am curious though what America’s health would be like if pot became legal.
I predict that if pot became legal, we’d have fewer drunk-driving accidents, fewer bar fights, fewer gang murders, and fewer people winding up in prison for selling a drug that’s less dangerous than alcohol to willing buyers.
I live in Washington. We don’t even have the guidelines for legal pot set up yet and already we feel the effects. Police dogs are no longer being trained to sniff out pot and officers no longer bother with people. In fact at Hempfest in Seattle the police showed up with Doritos. I haven’t heard about effects on prison population but it has to be an improvement to quit putting old hippies in jail and save the room for real criminals. I have heard from folks that the price has tanked to the point that dealers are getting out of the business.
Making a product illegal drives up the cost. That’s why Prohibition made the mob rich.
My definition of legal adulthood includes the right to buy and consume marijuana.
About 6 months ago I took some friends in town from Sweden to a dance club in downtown Atlanta. I would say that about 3/4 of the people there had imbibed in E and/or pot. At one point, an especially drunk guy tottered off a platform and crashed into the crowd, spilling at least a half-dozen drinks and knocking even more people down. I held my breath and started backing up to avoid the inevitable brawl. To my great surprise, they all just helped each other back up. I even saw several spontaneous hugs exchanged. Ha ha ha. I’ll take potheads over alcoholics any day!
I worked with a comedian who had a good bit about why potheads don’t get into brawls. It went something like this:
“Hey, you stepped on my toe! I’m going to kick your ass!”
“What?”
“I said I’m going to kick your ass!”
“Bummer, man. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you going to kick my ass?”
“Uh … I don’t remember. Do you?”
“No, man, sorry.”
“You want to get some Cheetos?”
“Okay, man, sure.”
Hi Tom,
I hope your birthday and the speech go well for you!!
Just thought you might be interested to read what Justin Smith of Statin Nation has to say about the ridiculous new guidelines for cholesterol. I guess I’m getting old. I thought if you had a reasonable brain and could read, something like the crap about cholesterol would be obvious. Probably, we were taught to think for ourselves when I was in school! Anyway, here’s the article: http://www.statinnation.net/blog/
Linda
I’m not sure why but my comments are not appearing – I’ll try again 🙂
It’s all been said above about the new cholesterol recommendations – I await with great anticipation to your reply… I know there will be one!!
I apologize for the comments not showing up. They probably went in the spam folder — I don’t really understand how those filters work. I used to check it for legitimate comments, but then it started catching thousands of spam comments per day. I don’t have that much free time.
Glad to hear you will commenting on the new cholesterol drug recommendations that will call for twice as many Americans to take statins.
From the article on the front page article in my newspaper: “Roughly half the cholesterol panel members have financial ties to the makers of heart drugs.”
Imagine if we held criminal court judges to the same standards: “I promise the vast sums of money I’ve received from drug cartels have nothing to do with this not guilty verdict.”
I was at least happy to see almost all the comments in the online edition of the story were blasting statins. The story included a sidebar on obesity with this nugget of “wisdom”:
“It is being overweight and obesity that are the real causes of heart attack and disease,” Nordestgaard, a professor and chief physician at Copenhagen University Hospital and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said in an e-mail. “Thus, you don’t need to examine for the metabolic syndrome to tell whether a person is at increased risk of heart attack. Just looking at them or measuring their body mass index is sufficient.”
Nevermind the pesky fact that marathon runners, well-known for being lean carbo-loaders, have MORE heart attacks than the general population.
Wow. Remind me to forbid my daughters from doing a student-exchange semester at Copenhagen University.
Scratch that. Sara would end up debating the goofball and kicking his ass.
Don’t some researchers (e.g., Peter Attia) suggest that it isn’t the overweight/obesity that causes health issues; it’s the body’s reactions to the underlying metabolic syndrome/insulin resistance that causes the weight issues and the diabetes. In fact, if I understood his theory, obesity may well be the body’s protective reaction to insulin resistance.
Correct. The idea is that we get fatter as a way of keeping blood sugar under control. When we stop getting fatter because we’ve more or less hit the limits of our ability to store fat, we lose that control.
one more time. Obesity is not an illness, obesity is a symptom.
Most docs are doing the medical equivalent of paint by number medicine. Barefoot doctors with powerful drugs; what could go wrong.
Hi Tom,
I hope your birthday and the speech go well for you!!
Just thought you might be interested to read what Justin Smith of Statin Nation has to say about the ridiculous new guidelines for cholesterol. I guess I’m getting old. I thought if you had a reasonable brain and could read, something like the crap about cholesterol would be obvious. Probably, we were taught to think for ourselves when I was in school! Anyway, here’s the article: http://www.statinnation.net/blog/
Linda
Here’s an opinion piece that appeared on the Editorial page of the NY Times today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/opinion/dont-give-more-patients-statins.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
Nice to see a little sanity in the newspaper.
GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF STATIN GUIDELINES = MORE CORRUPTION?
Self Experiment with “New and Improved” Statin Decision Spreadsheet from AHA and ACC – replacing old NHLBI guidelines……
————————————————————————-
James Buch
11:48 AM (4 minutes ago)
to kolata@nytimes.com
I did some self experimentation with the new Cholesterol/Statin Guideline Spreadsheet. If you and your professional friends would try the same, it might make for an interesting article.
I posted the following to Stopped Out Statins Yahoo group.
——————————————————————————-
I downloaded the Excel Spreadsheet for this assesment, and played around with it. I am a healthy 72 yr old male and wanted to see what it said. I input the following: Sex M, Age 72, Race WH ,TC 130 [total cholesterol], HDL 75, Sys 110 [systolic blood pressure], Treated N, Diabetes N, Smoke N….
I have a predicted 10 year risk for ASCVD of 13.2% If I had input the “optimal”patient data given in the spreadsheet, my risk would have been 15.1% It appears as if the “New and Improved” guidelines would put me on statins.
So, it appears as if the number of people given statins for primary treatment will EXPLODE. And so will the people subject to harmful side effects for dubious reasons..
Since the “New and Improved Guidelines for Pharma Money” are no longer originated from any US Government agency, there are probably no Federal fraud or influence/bribery penalties associated with large “contributions”, “stipends” or ”donations/gifts” to the private American Heart Association and the Cardiologist organization,.
How convenient. The risk of Pharma money being criminal for paid influence has probably mostly disappeared, thanks to the Government agencies bowing out of this historical role of guidelines for this medication…..
————————————————————————-
There are a variety of ways of converting the experience of self and fellow professional into an article. I leave that to you and any data which you acquire.
James D Buch PhD
Alice Research
Davenport IA
I’m not so sure having the government involved would help. It was the National Cholesterol Education Program that set the target for cholesterol at 200, thus ensuring we’d have millions of customers for statins.
Well,we are in the middle of influences of very rich Pharma companies, and the fact that their influence, through money, has permeated the great bulk of the Goverment/Healthcare industry complex.
A very well informed public consumer base might work, but getting to a well informed public is a path often followed and rarely achieved.
In the end, patients need to know how and when to defend themselves from this powerful Goverment/Healthcare industry complex. If possible, that is.
And the minimum death rate is at about 220-240 a broad minimum at that 200 is just nuts.
Here’s an opinion piece that appeared on the Editorial page of the NY Times today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/opinion/dont-give-more-patients-statins.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
Nice to see a little sanity in the newspaper.
GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF STATIN GUIDELINES = MORE CORRUPTION?
Self Experiment with “New and Improved” Statin Decision Spreadsheet from AHA and ACC – replacing old NHLBI guidelines……
————————————————————————-
James Buch
11:48 AM (4 minutes ago)
to kolata@nytimes.com
I did some self experimentation with the new Cholesterol/Statin Guideline Spreadsheet. If you and your professional friends would try the same, it might make for an interesting article.
I posted the following to Stopped Out Statins Yahoo group.
——————————————————————————-
I downloaded the Excel Spreadsheet for this assesment, and played around with it. I am a healthy 72 yr old male and wanted to see what it said. I input the following: Sex M, Age 72, Race WH ,TC 130 [total cholesterol], HDL 75, Sys 110 [systolic blood pressure], Treated N, Diabetes N, Smoke N….
I have a predicted 10 year risk for ASCVD of 13.2% If I had input the “optimal”patient data given in the spreadsheet, my risk would have been 15.1% It appears as if the “New and Improved” guidelines would put me on statins.
So, it appears as if the number of people given statins for primary treatment will EXPLODE. And so will the people subject to harmful side effects for dubious reasons..
Since the “New and Improved Guidelines for Pharma Money” are no longer originated from any US Government agency, there are probably no Federal fraud or influence/bribery penalties associated with large “contributions”, “stipends” or ”donations/gifts” to the private American Heart Association and the Cardiologist organization,.
How convenient. The risk of Pharma money being criminal for paid influence has probably mostly disappeared, thanks to the Government agencies bowing out of this historical role of guidelines for this medication…..
————————————————————————-
There are a variety of ways of converting the experience of self and fellow professional into an article. I leave that to you and any data which you acquire.
James D Buch PhD
Alice Research
Davenport IA
I’m not so sure having the government involved would help. It was the National Cholesterol Education Program that set the target for cholesterol at 200, thus ensuring we’d have millions of customers for statins.
Well,we are in the middle of influences of very rich Pharma companies, and the fact that their influence, through money, has permeated the great bulk of the Goverment/Healthcare industry complex.
A very well informed public consumer base might work, but getting to a well informed public is a path often followed and rarely achieved.
In the end, patients need to know how and when to defend themselves from this powerful Goverment/Healthcare industry complex. If possible, that is.
And the minimum death rate is at about 220-240 a broad minimum at that 200 is just nuts.
These workout routines raises the heart rate swiftly, causing the body to use
more oxygen throughout the decrease interval, which it turn burns more calories than normal workouts.
These workout routines raises the heart rate swiftly, causing the body to use
more oxygen throughout the decrease interval, which it turn burns more calories than normal workouts.