Statins for men
There has been some debate over statins in the British media in the last few days, which got me thinking, and of course this raises questions for the medical advisors to the site.
Is heart disease more prevalent in men?
I don’t know, I have never researched this, although I feel generally that I hear of more men having heart disease than women.
Are there more men on statins than women?
Given that this is possibly one of the biggest global health experiments, we should ask the question; are more men involved?
Do statins help us live with less health risks but die sooner?
I recall one gentleman commenting to me a while back that, every year on statins is a year off your life expentancy. Not that lower colestral doen’t help prevent the likes of strokes but they are accused of weakening the heart muscles. (I’ve heard the heart is not the only muscle that can go soft on statins)
I was reminded of this again when I saw this article here and of course there are different camps of opinion in the medical professional about who should be prescribed statins.
The Nice guidelines, which are still in draft form, propose that anyone with a 10% or greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years should be eligible for treatment with the cholesterol-busting drugs.
But the appeal was firmly rejected by Nice. “Cardiovascular disease [CVD] maims and kills people through coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease and stroke.
Then of course there is the issue of side effects and compatibility with other drugs.
The eight doctors say they do not believe the benefits of statins outweigh the side-effects.
In the past heart disease has been more prevalent in men, but this may be changing as more women become obese, and female rates of smoking compared to men increase.
There are risks associated with the use of statins, but if there is a high chance of cardiovascular disease the benefits probably outweigh these risks. Assessing the risk/benefit ratio for any individual is complex because it depends on lots of factors.
What is becoming clear is that it probably isn’t a good idea for generally healthy people to take statins as a preventative measure.
My opinion is that men are better advised to do everything they can to reduce their cardiovascular risk factors in other ways – stop smoking, exercise more, eat less.
Comment by JohnPotter — Fri 13th June 2014 @ 2:14 pm
This is an article on stress and the excessive production of white blood cells.
It would be interesting to have some research on the effect of Family Court cases and the health consequences of excessive white blood cells.
Maybe grounds to sue the bitches for their diseased behaviour.
Comment by Downunder — Mon 23rd June 2014 @ 2:39 pm
Bit hard to make any implications with this white blood cell influence on death rates of men. Its too convaluted due to the effects of exposure on the body, by Judith Collins and her mate Tolley throwing men onto the footpaths first, while women lay snug in your home, or in the womens refuge suplied one.
Comment by DJ Ward — Mon 23rd June 2014 @ 4:01 pm