"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
Yet More Statin Hype: The cholesterol lowering drugs that are the darlings of physicians everywhere are in the news again. Now, they’re being promoted for use in children. Based on a small sample of children in the Netherlands (173), the researchers have concluded that the drugs areas “safe as they are for adults” and have no effect on growth. How can you know that in such a small sample size? You can’t. Furthermore, there’s some evidence that statins cause more muscle inflammation than we give them credit for. Finally, the role of cholesterol in children and their peculiar growth needs, let alone its influence on their future health, is far from clear:
Because no long-term studies of the relationship of blood cholesterol levels measured in childhood to coronary heart disease in later life have been conducted, the relationship of childhood cholesterol levels to the atherosclerotic process must be inferred from less direct evidence.
It’s much too premature to call for using these drugs in children, but I suspect the American Heart Association, beneficiary of statin-producer donations, will soon be promoting it. posted by Sydney on
10/03/2002 08:44:00 AM
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