Outeating a Statin
It turns out that prescribing a statin makes people feel like they can eat whatever they want. Well, duh, doctors always knew that. You would try to tell patients that the statin doesn’t erase all their bad eating habits and they still need to watch their diets. Inevitably, many would shake their heads and after they left your office would go straight to McDonald’s. The study in JAMA looked at ten years of U.S. data and found that calorie and fat intake increased among statin users. In other words, the medicine provides “a false reassurance”. The reality is that, unfortunately, some patients that will outeat any statin or diabetic med you give them.
By the way, in the reference newspaper article above, Dr. Neil Stone, a Northwestern University heart specialist who chaired the guidelines committee, said, “My patients have always been taught that it’s not just enough to take medicine”. Goody, for you Dr. Stone. How pompous is that? Like no other doctor does that?
Statins are a scam regardless. Their absolute risk reduction numbers hover at about 1%.
Perhaps these numbers could be improved by a better diet, but then it would be the diet that worked, not the statin.
I have to say in dr stones defense that at least he practices what he preaches. When he was my teacher in med school he always took the stairs, even 14 flights up, and I could not keep up with him. In addition, he is not pompous in person. Journalists can misrepresent people.
Point taken
Good read on Dr Stone. Another obnoxious ivory tower lord, dispensing wisdom to the little people.
This doesn’t surprise me. Its very hard to get people to change.