Statins

By David Spero According to new guidelines, everyone with diabetes should take a statin drug to lower cholesterol. It doesn't matter how low his cholesterol already is. This makes little sense to me. See what you think. The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association just released these new guidelines. In one way they look like an improvement. According to Harlan Krumholz MD, the guidelines say doctors should be treating people, not just cholesterol numbers. Only those at "high risk" of heart disease and stroke should be treated. "The question is not whether a drug makes your lab tests better," says Krumholz, "but whether it lowers your risk of heart disease and stroke." Improving your lab numbers with drugs is not the same as lowering risks, he says. "Drugs have thousands of effects on the body, and a drug's effect on an individual lab test cannot necessarily predict its overall effect on you." Hooray for that! Finally, medicine is realizing that treating lab numbers can cause harm; it's good they are looking past the lab numbers. Unfortunately, the definition of "high risk" includes an awful lot of people. According to science writer Gina Kolata, almost anyone with diabetes, anyone who is African-American, anyone who has had a heart attack or high blood pressure, or has an LDL (“bad") cholesterol reading over 190 qualifies as high risk. More people on statins? An article on CNN.com cites cardiologist Gina Lundberg MD, of Emory University. Dr. ...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs