Statins and Arthritis

[MachineGhost]

I'm not sure what "cognitive heart failure" is, but other than that you're right on the money. Statins are the "killer app" of the pharmaceutical-industrial complex.

Lolz!  I had cognitive brain failure there.  I meant "congestive".  Since statins deplete your heart of CoQ10, its a guaranteed lock.

[MachineGhost]

So you've changed your opinion on aspirin,  MG?

No.  I was just trying to be helpful for people not into dietary supplements.

[screwtape]

Okay, I will. What are your real credentials for giving this advice?

Continuing Education (not sponsored by Big Pharma).

Got so pissed off at the replies to this post that I actually deleted my account but I came back just to give my reply. Don't know how long I'll stay.

I'm very familiar with the case against statins. I might not have read as thoroughly as you or others have on the subject but I actually read most of Uffe Ravnskov's book as well as many other online articles and for many years I was convinced. Like I think I said, I have been fired by two doctors for not following their advice.

Despite diet and exercise including 2 fasting days per week for 2 years and losing 35 lbs to the point where my BMI is almost normal my total cholesterol continued to hover around 325. That's abnormally high in anybody's book and nothing I do seems to change it. I have no history of high cholesterol or heart disease in my family and a doctor recently told me that at age 65 I had the blood pressure of a teenage boy (110/70 by last measurement).

I went to a doctor for unrelated issues in January and got the usual recommendation to take a statin. I figured what the heck, might as well give it a try and see what happens.

I already described part of the results after 3 months - a reduction in total cholesterol from 325 to 205 and an anecdotal observation of arthritis relief in my back. And for the record, I already tried most of the things you suggested including aspirin and circumin. I thought circumin was helping for a while but it seemed to stop. A form of ibuprofen I can get from Canada that contains a muscle relaxer helps best but I don't like taking too much because Nsaids also have long-term side-effects. I've recently been using lidocaine patches which also help. I've also had physical therapy.

But in addition to the observation I already made about the benefit I thought I was receiving from Crestor I can also report two other things:

1.) I suffered from pulsating tinnitus in my ear for over a year and thought it was going to be a fact of life for me for the rest of my life. About two months after starting Crestor it just stopped in the middle of the night and has not come back. Google puslating tinnitus and you will see that one possible cause is hardening of the arteries. Crestor claims that it can actually reverse hardening of the arteries. Anectodal evidence only, to be sure, but there it is.

2.) Another symptom I had of hardening of the arteries was erectile dysfunction. More anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but I feel that condition has also improved.

Make of this what you want. If you want to continue to say that statins are only about enriching "Big Pharma" then go ahead but I'm not so convinced any more.

[MachineGhost]

Got so pissed off at the replies to this post that I actually deleted my account but I came back just to give my reply. Don't know how long I'll stay.

Wow, you need to take a chill pill!  We're all about helping each other in here.

Its great that you're receiving some short term benefits from a statin.  After all, they reduce inflammation and C-Reactive Protein as an unintended consequence.  And whenever you reduce inflammation and oxidation in the body, you're bound to improve things.  But it doesn't mean that the long-term negative side effects from the primary mechanism don't apply.  That was the point of our replies, however poorly in taste that you felt they were.

It reads to me like you have familial hypercholesterolemia.  That's a little different situation than wanting to drug literally everyone with a statin.  Even though it still stands that the only primary benefit statins have in terms of CVD outcomes is they reduce the risk of dying slightly and only after you've had your first heart attack.

I won't even recommend red yeast extract which is where statins were originally synthesized from because the primary mechanism is just simply too deadly in the long-term and it is fundamentally the wrong approach to solving the core issue of LDL oxidation.  Statins take a sledgehammer to what is a nail.

It seems to me you would benefit from looking more into primary anti-inflammatories which hopefully would have less scary side effects than statins.

[screwtape]

I won't even recommend red yeast extract which is where statins were originally synthesized from

Wow, you need to take a chill pill! 

Any recommendations for a chill pill?

I took red yeast rice last year before my biometrics at work to see if I could get my numbers down and reduce my health insurance premium. Didn't work.

But I was just reading about it today and from what I have learned the FDA has banned all red yeast rice from the market if it contains anything more than trace amounts of lovastatin so most of what is sold doesn't have it. I read that you can still get the real thing if you look hard enough but if you want to go to all that effort might as well take lipitor and be sure of what you are getting.

And BTW, the cost of my Crestor is $10/day, paid fully by health insurance. It doesn't go generic until next year. If I was paying for it myself I definitely would NOT be doing it. In addition my doctor is requiring me to get a blood test and make an office visit every 3 months which the FDA no longer recommends for any statin drugs. She will be fired before my next office visit. If I continue to take Crestor it will be with another doctor.

[gizmo_rat]

madbean

I was prescribed statins about a year ago, all was fine and they were effective at what they were supposed to do. After about 6 months I started to feel deep muscular fatigue (like when you overdo the exercise then take a hot bath) which massively impacted my ability to exercise.
I didn't really connect how I was feeling with the known potential side effects of statins, long story short it took me a couple more months of experimentation to work out the statins were probably responsible.
On my doctors advice I fiddled about with the dosage but I was getting the fatigue effects even on an 8th of the dosage. I stopped taking them entirely about 3 months ago and I'd say have only just about recovered my stamina. Obviously the underlying issue probably remains but I'm trying other means until my next bloodtest in a couple of months. At that time difficult choices may have to be made, hopefully not involving getting fired by my doctor

TLDR: Side effects may take months to develop and might not be as others describe them.

Hope the statins continue to work for you.

[dualstow]

Stick around, madbean. It's all just words on a screen.

Any recommendations for a chill pill?

I *do* not recommend valerian root. Not only does it not work, but supposedly the smell is attractive to rats. That may turn out to be a myth, like copper tape vs garden slugs, but in any case, it stinks! And it will not help you chill that much. 

[ochotona]

Statins have made a huge positive difference for me in terms of NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). I went from having NAFLD to not having NAFLD in a couple of years, by losing a bit of weight, taking Vitamin E, and a statin. Obviously, I can't tease apart which one helped, and how much it helped, but the net effect was good. I have not noticed any other side effects.

[sixdollars]

Statins have made a huge positive difference for me in terms of NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). I went from having NAFLD to not having NAFLD in a couple of years, by losing a bit of weight, taking Vitamin E, and a statin. Obviously, I can't tease apart which one helped, and how much it helped, but the net effect was good. I have not noticed any other side effects.

I've read that this is a pretty common disorder in a lot of Americans.  If I had to bet on any one of those three factors you named, I'd bet on the first one having the largest contribution if you are currently overweight.  Increasing your intake of natural sources of choline (e.g. eggs, organ meats) may help with fatty liver tremendously - choline is an essential nutrient that's required for the transport of fat out of the liver.  Reducing your intake of excess fructose (e.g. sodas) tends to improve this as well.  Just my two cents

[Reub]

Statins have made a huge positive difference for me in terms of NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). I went from having NAFLD to not having NAFLD in a couple of years, by losing a bit of weight, taking Vitamin E, and a statin. Obviously, I can't tease apart which one helped, and how much it helped, but the net effect was good. I have not noticed any other side effects.

I've read that this is a pretty common disorder in a lot of Americans.  If I had to bet on any one of those three factors you named, I'd bet on the first one having the largest contribution if you are currently overweight.  Increasing your intake of natural sources of choline (e.g. eggs, organ meats) may help with fatty liver tremendously - choline is an essential nutrient that's required for the transport of fat out of the liver.  Reducing your intake of excess fructose (e.g. sodas) tends to improve this as well.  Just my two cents

Lecithin is a great source of choline as well as other vital components necessary for cellular membrane vitality. I take it as a supplement every day.

[MachineGhost]

But I was just reading about it today and from what I have learned the FDA has banned all red yeast rice from the market if it contains anything more than trace amounts of lovastatin so most of what is sold doesn't have it. I read that you can still get the real thing if you look hard enough but if you want to go to all that effort might as well take lipitor and be sure of what you are getting.

That's interesting and I didn't know that (or forgot it a very very long time ago).

So if you're going to stay on a statin at least be smart about it and pair it with ubiquinol.  I can't promise doing so will prevent all the negative side effects from the statin, but it seems logical that if you prevent your body from being depleted of CoQ10 by the statin in the first place, then the negative side effects may not ever show up.  Of course, this excludes the negative side effects from insufficient cholesterol, but there's no cure for that other than not to take a statin.  The ideal number is 220 where all cause mortality is the lowest.  I don't know if you can have insufficient cholesterol while near that number on a statin or it is only at those extremely risky <150 numbers.  But remember how statins work... they force the liver to unnaturally purge ALL cholesterol out of the body from everywhere, including the brain.  There's no selectivity and no discrimination.

And BTW, a lot of so-called "high cholesterol" is due to hypothyroidism.  Ignorant doctors aren't aware of the relationship.  Fixing the hypothyroidism will normalize cholesterol because the thyroid endproducts use LDL against infections.  This probably doesn't apply to familial hypercholesterolemia though (>300).

[MachineGhost]

I've read that this is a pretty common disorder in a lot of Americans.  If I had to bet on any one of those three factors you named, I'd bet on the first one having the largest contribution if you are currently overweight.  Increasing your intake of natural sources of choline (e.g. eggs, organ meats) may help with fatty liver tremendously - choline is an essential nutrient that's required for the transport of fat out of the liver.  Reducing your intake of excess fructose (e.g. sodas) tends to improve this as well.  Just my two cents

Avoid niacin too...  it's in all that fortification.

[MachineGhost]

I found a study that evaluated the efficacy of ubiquinone:

[quote=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9816194]
Cyclical treatment with lovstatin markedly inhibited the mevalonate pathway, evidenced by reductions in both cholesterol and ubiquinone concentrations, by up to 43 and 49% of pretreatment values, respectively.
[/quote]

[quote=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9816194]
Treatment with ubiquinone was associated with reversal of lovastatin-induced myopathy, and its prophylactic administration prevented the development of this toxicity in a cohort of 56 patients.
[/quote]

[quote=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9816194]
The occurrence of myopathy, the dose-limiting toxicity, can be prevented by ubiquinone supplementation.
[/quote]

[quote=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9816194]
Oral ubiquinone supplementation for a week resulted in a 3-fold increase in serum concentrations (Table 3) from baseline concentrations of 1 .23 ± 0.78 p.g/ml to 4.58 ± 3.20 ug/ml (mean ± SD, n = 27). Following the administration of lovastatin for 7 days, ubiquinone concentrations decreased on average by 49% (to 1.88 ± 0.97 p.g/rnl, P = 0.001, Wilcoxon’s signed rank test) but still exceeded baseline measurements.
[/quote]

So a 63% success rate in preventing side effects with ubiquinone.  Not inspiring, but ubiquinone is poorly absorbed and they used 240mg a day.  Ubiquinol is at least 8x more bioavailable.

[MachineGhost]

MG, I thought you didn't trust government studies, especially those relating to healthcare...

What gave you the impression this study was a government study?

[MachineGhost]

Idk, maybe the fact that the link was to nih.gov?
Any time past that I have tried to substantiate statements with links to CDC, NIH, AMA, ADA, xxx.gov, etc., I have been hand-waived by numerous people here. It seems the only govt stats anyone believes are from the St. Louis Fed.

NIH just hosts PubMed which provides abstracts and links to published studies.  That's a little different than the propaganda coming directly from the three lettered agencies.  In this case, there was no third-party home page for the study so I linked to the abstract on PubMed.

But I'm really tickled if you had actually tried to substantiate statements with government propaganda!  Poor guy.

[dualstow]

Ok, MG. Start eviscerating. 

[quote=cnn]A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee today recommended approval of a new type of experimental cholesterol-fighting drug that could be more potent and carry fewer side effects than statins, which are among the most prescribed drugs in the United States.

The agency will likely follow the advisory committee's advice when it decides whether to approve the drug, alirocumab (Praluent) from Sanofi SA and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., for patients later this summer.

On Wednesday, the advisory committee will discuss a second drug in the same class, evolocumab (Repatha) from Amgen Inc.[/quote]

[Libertarian666]

Ok, MG. Start eviscerating. 

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee today recommended approval of a new type of experimental cholesterol-fighting drug that could be more potent and carry fewer side effects than statins, which are among the most prescribed drugs in the United States.

The agency will likely follow the advisory committee's advice when it decides whether to approve the drug, alirocumab (Praluent) from Sanofi SA and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., for patients later this summer.

On Wednesday, the advisory committee will discuss a second drug in the same class, evolocumab (Repatha) from Amgen Inc.

Since cholesterol is a necessary component of our nervous system, and has NOT been proven to cause any illness other than possibly in some rare cases of a genetic disorder, this is just another attempt to make money by brainwashing people into thinking they need to take a harmful drug.

[Reub]

I'd wait about 20 years to see if it's really safe.

[MachineGhost]

Ok, MG. Start eviscerating. 

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee today recommended approval of a new type of experimental cholesterol-fighting drug that could be more potent and carry fewer side effects than statins, which are among the most prescribed drugs in the United States.

The agency will likely follow the advisory committee's advice when it decides whether to approve the drug, alirocumab (Praluent) from Sanofi SA and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., for patients later this summer.

On Wednesday, the advisory committee will discuss a second drug in the same class, evolocumab (Repatha) from Amgen Inc.

It causes a decrease in LDL by forcing the liver to remove even more LDL from the blood than statins.  Remember, the carrier protein (apolipoprotein before cholesterol is on it, then called LDL) transports more than just cholesterol; it transports all the non-water soluble vitamins, fats, hormones, etc..  The less LDL you have, less your organs are gonna get any of the critical stuff needed for life, nevermind optimal health.

On the plus side it looks like it might bypass depleting CoQ10 which is the #1 toxic problem with statins.

I don't know if I've repeated it enough on this topic, but the problem is OXIDIZED cholesterol NOT cholesterol.  Getting rid of the latter is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[dualstow]

I'd wait about 20 years to see if it's really safe.

Me, too. Or at least 5-10.

[screwtape]

madbean

I was prescribed statins about a year ago, all was fine and they were effective at what they were supposed to do. After about 6 months I started to feel deep muscular fatigue (like when you overdo the exercise then take a hot bath) which massively impacted my ability to exercise.
I didn't really connect how I was feeling with the known potential side effects of statins, long story short it took me a couple more months of experimentation to work out the statins were probably responsible.
On my doctors advice I fiddled about with the dosage but I was getting the fatigue effects even on an 8th of the dosage. I stopped taking them entirely about 3 months ago and I'd say have only just about recovered my stamina. Obviously the underlying issue probably remains but I'm trying other means until my next bloodtest in a couple of months. At that time difficult choices may have to be made, hopefully not involving getting fired by my doctor

TLDR: Side effects may take months to develop and might not be as others describe them.

Hope the statins continue to work for you.

I have been experiencing some unusual fatigue of late but don't know if Crestor is the cause or not. One problem I think they have in evaluating the side effects of statins is the nocebo effect. In some studies I've looked at the side effects reported were the same in the placebo group as they were in those taking the real thing. I guess the only way to tell would be to discontinue but then if I stop feeling fatigue is that a placebo effect?

I'm thinking of stopping after my latest prescription runs out which is in about a month, mainly because my doctor is tied to the idea of having me get a blood test and make an appointment every 3 months. Not gonna happen. I have avoided doctors like the plague for most of my life so there is no way I'm going to be making constant visits like this, especially when she makes 9:00 appointments and then shows up in the office at 10:00 with a waiting room full of people. I think she either hasn't read the latest FDA guidelines that say routine testing isn't necessary with statins any more or else she doesn't want to give up the steady revenue stream. Either way, I'm firing her.

And also for the record, I'm starting to think the lessening of my arthritis pain might have been due to a supplement I was taking called Celadrin because I stopped taking it and it seems to have returned to its prior level.

[MachineGhost]

I have been experiencing some unusual fatigue of late but don't know if Crestor is the cause or not. One problem I think they have in evaluating the side effects of statins is the nocebo effect. In some studies I've looked at the side effects reported were the same in the placebo group as they were in those taking the real thing. I guess the only way to tell would be to discontinue but then if I stop feeling fatigue is that a placebo effect?

I'm thinking of stopping after my latest prescription runs out which is in about a month, mainly because my doctor is tied to the idea of having me get a blood test and make an appointment every 3 months. Not gonna happen. I have avoided doctors like the plague for most of my life so there is no way I'm going to be making constant visits like this, especially when she makes 9:00 appointments and then shows up in the office at 10:00 with a waiting room full of people. I think she either hasn't read the latest FDA guidelines that say routine testing isn't necessary with statins any more or else she doesn't want to give up the steady revenue stream. Either way, I'm firing her.

And also for the record, I'm starting to think the lessening of my arthritis pain might have been due to a supplement I was taking called Celadrin because I stopped taking it and it seems to have returned to its prior level.

It sounds like its depleting your CoQ10 already since CoQ10 is required to produce ATP.   As far as placebos go, no one really uses true inert sugar-pill placebos anymore.  They actually like to use inert "placebos" that incur the same side effects as on the drug to make the drug itself look better.  Such a racket.

I tried Celadrin once but it actually make my joints very, very painful, the opposite of the intended effect!

[gizmo_rat]

I guess the only way to tell would be to discontinue but then if I stop feeling fatigue is that a placebo effect?

Yes it's really difficult, I found fatigue is very bound with emotional state, teasing out which is causing which is hard. I stopped and started statins 4 times before deciding that on balance they were probably the cause. As much as anything it was the effects noticeable to others that made my mind up.
That kind of deep fatigue makes me ratty and brittle, which is a no go with children. There's only so many times you can snap at your kids before thinking "bollocks to this, I'm not running a scientific experiment here".

[screwtape]

I tried Celadrin once but it actually make my joints very, very painful, the opposite of the intended effect!

Just ordered my second bottle because I had a few pills left and felt better after taking them for a couple of days.

Maybe with joint pain you go from one placebo effect to another but that's better than nothing, I guess.

[MachineGhost]

There's a statin-iron connection.  Details here: http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ot ... #msg122487