The Truth About the Recent Cholesterol Drug Study

Last week, the results of a new study on a cholesterol-lowering drug were released generating a ton of press attention. The study (the JUPITER study) made the front page of the NY Times, was featured on just about every television news show, and generally created a lot of buzz. Even if you weren't paying too much attention- and it was hard not to- you might have heard that the study showed that a cholesterol-lowering medication (Crestor) lowered the risk for heart disease by over 40% in people who did not have high cholesterol in the first place!

The Wall Street Journal was practically salivating in its predictions. "The findings could substantially broaden the market for statins, the world's best-selling class of medicines", they panted. "Morgan Stanley analysts predicted Crestor revenue could rise to as much as 8 billion and 18% of the global statin market in 2014".

OK let's take a look at what actually happened before we start putting statins in the water supply.

Approximately 17,000 participants were enrolled in the study, all at "prime heart attack age" (over 50 for men, over 60 for women). But none had either high cholesterol levels nor evidence of serious heart disease. By all traditional measures, they were a healthy men and women.

What they did have was elevated inflammation.

We know this because the researchers measured their blood levels for CRP (C-Reactive Protein) an excellent marker for inflammation in the body. For years and years I- and many other nutritionists and doctors- have been warning that inflammation is the real danger for heart disease and that cholesterol is a red herring. Inflammation is the silent killer. Inflammation is what we should be paying attention to. C-Reactive Protein is an important measure to know, even though most docs have scoffed at it and told us it's not that important. (Besides, they were too busy focusing on cholesterol.)

For years I've also been saying that any benefit that might be had by taking statin drugs has nothing to do with lowering cholesterol. But statin drugs have an interesting little "side effect": they happen to lower inflammation.

So here's this study when people with completely normal cholesterol (but elevated inflammation) benefit from a statin drug. Think they'd figure out that maybe cholesterol wasn't the issue in the first place?

Oh no. What you'll probably see is a movement to lower the "normal" cholesterol levels even further down so that even more people can be put on these drugs.

Which, by the way, are far from perfectly safe. Though the mainstream establishment downplays their side effects, most knowledgeable clinicians will tell you that side effects like muscle pain and fatigue are far more common than widely believed and that they see these side effects in about 15% of patients. And the drug costs $3.50 a day, if you care.

So what we have here is a study that showed a very very modest reduction in risk for heart disease, using a drug that accomplished that not by lowering cholesterol but by lowering inflammation. The benefit of the drug-- such as it was (and it was modest to say the least)--- clearly had nothing to do whatsoever with lowering cholesterol.

By the way, how can I say that the benefit was modest when it was reported as a whopping 44% reduction in risk?

Simple. Because the percentages don't tell the whole story.

The real numbers were as follows: In the non-treated group, about 14 in 1000 developed cardiovascular disease (in other words 1.4 percent of the group). In the treated group, only 8 in 1000 developed cardiovascular disease (.8 percent). Tiny numbers- but reducing 14 to 8 does produce a "44% reduction" (just as reducing 3-in-a-million to 2-in-a-million produces a 33% reduction!)

Inflammation truly is an important health issue, and anything that reduces inflammation should be paid attention to. The sad part of all this is that there are so many ways to reduce inflammation naturally without drugs. Fish oil is one of the most anti-inflammatory substances on the plant. So are the myriad of natural anti-inflammatories (like the quercetin found in apples and onions, and the hundreds of other flavonoids in the plant kingdom).

But of course none of those are 20 billion dollar-a-year businesses.