By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben
If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans taking a statin drug you should know that yet another study was released yesterday, this one published online in the venerable Journal of the American Medical Association, implicating these best-selling billion-dollar babies in the development of muscle weakness and pain.
By Ed Yourdon (Flickr: Jogging couple) via Wikimedia Commons
Apparently, according to the study, which analyzed data gleaned from the health records of San Antonio-based beneficiaries (i.e. victims) of the U.S military health care system, statin drug use is associated with an “increased likelihood of diagnosis of musculoskeletal conditions”. In English, that means that if you’re on statins your likely to mess up your muscles.
Now if anyone is surprised by this kind of finding which mimics the results found many other studies and corroborates the information on the drug company own insert that’s included in all statin drug packages, they’re clearly not paying attention to biochemistry, medicinal mechanisms or for that matter the news. Even mainstream media outlets like Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/05/statins-linked-to-muscle-pain-sprains/ and CNN http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/statin-side-effects/MY00205.html have weighed in on this most notorious of statin induced symptoms. At this point, a quarter century after their release on an unsuspecting and unfortunately sometimes gullible public, no medical practioner worth his salt can plead ignorance to the muscle pain and weakness that is clearly associated with long-term statin use.
Now when most of us think of muscles we tend to think of biceps, triceps, quadriceps and other body structures connected to the skeleton, i.e. what is generally referred to as the musculoskeletal system. What is often forgotten however, is the fact that that one of the largest, strongest and certainly the most important muscles in the body is … the heart!
How ironic that a drug that is a supposed to be used to protect against cardiovascular disease boasts as a primary side effect toxicity to the heart, the very organ the poison (medicine) is supposed be treating! What’s even worse, last month in an article published on the website Medical New Today, researchers from the British Medical Journal reported on evidence that statin use can increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. And the most notable system affected by this serious life-threatening disease? You guessed it, the heart. Again the supposed structure that statin drugs are supposed to be supporting.
Look, it’s not complicated: the human body cannot function in a healthy fashion unless it can make cholesterol and a lot of it. This important raw material for hormones and cells is arguably the most critical chemical in the body and the molecule that singularly distinguishes animal life from plant life. Put another way, cholesterol is the quintessential molecule of animal life. If you mess around with the body’s ability to make this stuff you are playing with fire and the longer you poison cholesterol manufacturing bio-machinery the more likely you are going to be to be dealing with toxicity and side effects.
If you’re concerned about cardiovascular disease or if you’ve had a heart attack and want to prevent another one there are numerous non-toxic, non-pharmaceutical strategies that you can use to keep yourself out of the cardiologist’s office and out from under his knife. Magnesium Glycinate, Essential Fatty Acids, Taurine, Arginine and Sulfur (MSM) are just a few gentle, benign and multi-functional nutritional supplements that you can use to keep heart healthy and strong. And Niacin is a great supplement that can reduce cholesterol production just as effectively as any statin drug without the side effects. Perhaps the most important cardiovascular health strategy is to stay away from insulin spiking foods. Excess ingestion bread, pasta cereal, cakes candies fruits and fruit juices and many other mainstays of the Standard American Diet (SAD) are a sure fire way to mess up your heart and circulatory system. Staying off of these foods is way better heart-healthy strategy than taking a poison anti- cholesterol drug. You won’t have to worry about side effects and you’ll lose weight too. You’re likely to lower your blood pressure and increase your longevity to boot. And unlike the deadly drugs dispensed by your doctor you’ll actually drop your risk diabetes.
