Originally published April 28 2004
The untold story on cholesterol lowering drugs: no drug comes close to
the effectiveness of nutrition and exercise
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A study commissioned by Bristol-Myers Squibb and hoped to prove that its
own cholesterol-lowering drug outperformed a competitors recently
backfired, proving Pfizer's Lipitor to be more effective. The headlines
are ablaze with news about this study, and doctors continue to push
these drugs (statins) on patients, demanding they take them for life.
But the real story is that neither drug comes close to the
effectiveness of nutrition and physical exercise. And, in fact,
statin drugs in general are already being linked to a variety of
problems, most notably an imbalance of sex hormones which makes it
difficult for men to juice up or perform in a sexual context. Of course,
Pfizer offers another drug for that -- Viagra -- and that's how the
whole chain reaction of prescription drugs starts: first you take one
drug, and it causes another problem. Then you take a second drug to fix
that problem, and before you know it, you're on twelve prescriptions
costing you $500 / month just to get a hard on. Changes in diet are
by far the most effective and safe way to reduce cholesterol. Eating
ginger, garlic, psyllium husk fiber, and superfoods like The Ultimate
Meal can have dramatic cholesterol lowering effects, all without the
potential negative side effects of statin drugs. Avoiding metabolic
disruptors like high fructose corn syrup, white flour, sodium nitrite,
and hydrogenated oils helps even more. If you add daily walking or other
physical exercise to the strategy, your cholesterol drops yet again and,
eventually, sustains a healthy, normal level for the rest of your life.
These doctors and pharmaceutical companies who keep promoting statin
drugs are engaged in very bad medicine -- a health sham of such
proportion that it can only be called criminal. They tell people about
this "magic pill" that will lower their cholesterol, and they almost
never mention the negative side effects. Much of the same hype was used
for now-discredited Hormone Replacement Therapy. There's always another
line of "miracle drugs" being pushed by organized medicine. It's only
later, after a hundred thousand people are potentially injured or
killed, that the real side effects of the drug come to light.
Doctors should be telling people to change their diets and take up
exercise, not prescribing "miracle" pills that claim to balance their
cholesterol for them. In fact, prescribing the pill may actually harm
the patient because it may dissuade them from making the hard choices
(nutrition and physical fitness) they really need to make if they want
to be healthy in the long term. Drugs are never the long-term
answer to health, and yet they are regularly pushed onto patients by
doctors with precisely that message.
A study funded by Bristol-Myers (nyse: BMY - news - people) shows
clearly that the highest dose of Pfizer's (nyse: PFE - news - people)
Lipitor prevented heart problems better than a high dose of Bristol's
own Pravachol.
Already, 11 million Americans take these medicines, and doctors say 25
million more should be.
Moreover, researchers agree that, at least in the sickest patients,
the results will compel them to use high doses of the most powerful
drugs available.
What makes the results particularly surprising is that some accused
Bristol of stacking the deck against Lipitor when it designed the study.
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