From: Dave Burton
To: Elizabeth
Cc: Barb
Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:11:55 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Blaylock v. statins/cholesterol ("Re: Fwd: Statins - more info")
In-Reply-To: <725678.97041.qm@web54107.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Betty wrote:
> Barb wrote:
>
> > Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:57:03 -0500
> > From: Barbara
> > Subject: Statins - more info
> >
> > these two doctors are excellent. Blaylock's report is
> > attached at .pdf.
> > Forget about using Statins.
> > barb
> >
> >
> > http://www.mercola.com/2005/jun/14/merck_behavior.htm
> > Dr. Mercola's advice [Chicago doctor, lives next door to Arlene]
> >
> > http://www.newsmax.com/newsletters/blaylock/issues/index.cfm
> > This is Dr. Blaylock, excellent advice. subscription is $50 a year,
> > I'm sending you a report on statins as an attachment.
Dear Betty & Barb,
I think [Betty's son, an MD] would tell you that Blaylock gets
no respect in the medical community. Blaylock's article gives
clues about why that is so.
p.1 "There are over 4,600 journals reviewed every month by the
National Library of Medicine and entered as abstracts on the
Internet."
Sloppy. PubMed/MEDLINE indexes over 5000 journals from around
the world, but most are not monthly. Or perhaps he meant
ARTICLES, not journals. Articles have abstracts, journals
do not.
p.2 "For the past several years there has been a propaganda
blitz not seen since the government poisoned our drinking water
with fluoride."
Nutcase alert! "Since the government poisoned our drinking
water with fluoride?" The fact is that 2/3 of municipal water
in the USA is fluoridated.
Cary fluoridates its water to 1 ppm. I'm nearly certain that
Raleigh's water is also fluoridated. Almost all large
municipalities in the USA fluoridate their water.
www.raleigh-nc.org says, "December 11, 1956: Raleigh voters
endorse fluoridation and approve bonds for streets."
p.2 "This latest blitz began with misinformation implying that
dietary cholesterol is the cause of arteriosclerosis (hardening
of the arteries) and that only drugs can prevent heart attacks
and strokes by lowering this cholesterol."
"Misinformation?" In fact, large, double-blind, peer-reviewed
studies consistently have shown that the use of statins reduces
arteriosclerosis.
"Only drugs?" That's a straw man. In fact, I've never seen
cholesterol recommendations that did not include changes in
diet and increases in exercise to help combat hyperlipidemia.
p.2 "all statin drugs have been associated with causing or
promoting cancer in experimental animals."
Actually, the studies of statin carcinogenicity have been
inconclusive, with some studies finding increased cancer risk,
others finding decreased cancer risk, and most finding little
or no effect. See:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16143800&dopt=Abstract
p.3 "Recently, the medical community, in league with the
pharmaceutical companies, has been pushing to lower the
standard dramatically. Some of these 'maniacs' are calling for
blood cholesterols of 150, a level far too low."
It is one thing to disagree with the medical consensus about
cholesterol recommendations, but calling the bulk of the
medical community "maniacs" shows Blaylock to be a crank.
p.3 "So, why the obsession with cholesterol-lowering statin
drugs? As with most things, just follow the money."
Actually, any cardiologist who has been around a long time can
tell you, for example, from his personal experience, about the
dramatic benefit of statin therapy to patients who have had
cardiac bypass operations. It has greatly increased the
average time after a bypass operation before blockage recurs.
To cardiologists, that is exciting!
p.4 "policosanol, a waxy extract of sugar cane, has been shown
to safely lower cholesterol just as well as the statin drugs,
but without any toxicity whatsoever."
This article http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/550370_4
reports, "In this trial, daily administration of 20 mg
policosanol (Cholesstor) did not lower serum total cholesterol,
LDL-C, or triglyceride levels, nor did it increase serum HDL-C.
Furthermore, when given in combination with atorvastatin,
policosanol did not produce any additional lipid lowering above
that induced by atorvastatin alone."
Am Heart J. 2006;152(5):982.e1-982.e5.
p.5 "Recently, the FDA withdrew the new statin cervivastatin
from the market because of the large number of deaths due to
this complication."
1) It is spelled cerivastatin, not cervivastatin. (The product
name was "Baychol.")
2) It was withdrawn from the market nearly six years ago,
That's "recently?" Well, the Blaylock article is dated 8/2004,
but that's still 3 years after Baycol was withdrawn by Bayer,
and Blaylock is still advertising and selling his uncorrected
2004 article.
I could go on, but I got tired of this. Skipping to the end
we read:
p.10 "Dr. Blaylock serves on the editorial staff of the
Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association and is the
associate editor of the Journal of American Physicians and
Surgeons, official journal of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons."
But both the "Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons"
and "Journal of the American Neutraceutical Association" are
listed as untrustworthy by QuackWatch:
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecperiodicals.html
Wikipedia (which, I acknowledge, is not terribly reliable)
claims that "historically some of [AAPS's] leaders have been
members of the John Birch Society." If true, that is more
reason to question the veracity if the information from that
organization. The JBS claims to be "conservative," but they
are actually conspiracy nuts.
BTW, my web page about cholesterol and statins is here:
http://www.burtonsys.com/cholesterol.html
I take very tiny doses of Lipitor and Zetia: 1.25 mg Lipitor
and 0.625 mg Zetia, daily, with my doctor's approval. (I use
a mortar & pestle and grind 'em up to divide the doses so
finely.) It turns out that the effectiveness of statins and
Zetia is not very dependent on dosage. If you are worried
about side-effects, lowering the dose of any medication
generally reduces the risk of side-effects (and also makes
the medications much more affordable).
-Dave
H: 919-481-0098