Reading Between the Lines.

Last week I posted on the JUPITER study and the media hoopla surrounding it.

Well, looks like they’re not done yet:

“Eat Your Statins?“ For heaven’s sake.

There’s not much in this article that hasn’t been discussed or debunked at length on this and other blogs, but a couple of lines are worth highlighting:

The drugs have side effects, including muscle weakening, that can be dangerous in some cases. Nobody is advocating putting really healthy patients on statins.

Really? Consider these selections, taken straight from the article:

But low-risk people would need to be treated to make a dent in the one-third of American deaths (that’s 800,000) caused by heart attacks and strokes.
Sidney Wolfe of the watchdog group Public Citizen says “the message that has come off Jupiter is that people who are otherwise very healthy can benefit from statins.”

If you redefine “healthy” to mean high levels of inflammation, that is.

But like all articles of this kind, you can find a diamond in the rough if you look hard enough:

Hunter-gatherers, who fed on fish, lean meat and fibrous veggies, had levels of low-density lipoprotein, or bad cholesterol, between 50 and 75 milligrams per deciliter, half the level for the average American. (emphasis mine)

So maybe the headline should read, “Eat Your Meat and Leaves” instead; it’s a whole lot cheaper – and a whole lot tastier, to boot.