Lynne Newhouse Segal was the picture of robustness. At 59, the slim former lawyer was an avid runner, golfer and yoga practitioner. Segal, who lives in San Francisco, was healthy by nearly every measure — except her cholesterol level, which a routine test four years ago revealed was high. High cholesterol is a key risk factor for heart disease, especially in a patient Segal's age and with her family history (several close relatives had had heart attacks), so her doctor put her on a cholesterol-lowering statin drug as a preventive measure.
Oh, but dark clouds soon gather...
But Segal's statin ended up preventing her from living a heart-healthy lifestyle. A month after she started taking the drug, she suffered muscle pain so severe, she had to stop all physical activity and was unable to sleep at night. Although her husband, who was worried about her risk of heart attack, pleaded with her to stay on the drug, she discontinued using it. The muscle pain receded. "My husband was scared for me. Doctors scare you. But I was in so much pain, I told him I would have rather died than stay on them," says Segal.
That grim situation could have been avoided, researchers say.
How about asking for another type of statin? That's what Marilyn Goldberg, age 75, did after suffering muscle pains so severe she complained to her husband Mort and son Bob (that's me) almost daily... And she did, about 4 or 5 times until she found one that worked. And now the pains are gone and her cholesterol is really low.
But you see, Marilyn is not a set piece or prop in some Obama-esque sob story about how we the people are screwed by uncaring corporations. She is a responsible person taking action on her own behalf...
Rather died?
I don't want to harp on this self-pitying because I am half-convinced that it is only half-true. That's because much of the "reporting" in the Time article on women and statins is half-baked. You read the piece sensing that women receive NO benefit from statins and tons of risk. In fact, there are many sub-groups and many situations where that is not the case.
The issue at hand is whether statins should be given to women who do not have high cholesterol at all but have other risk factors because cholesterol is not a very good marker for heart disease in women... (my emphasis)
The JUPITER study was designed to test whether other markers of heart disease in relatively healthy older women and men predicted heart disease by giving them statins to reduce a protein called CRP. If CRP was reduced and nasty events that lead to hospitalizations or death were reduced after taking a solid dose of the statin then the study could claim to show that CRP testing in combination with statins reduced the incidence of heart disease in relatively healthy women and men. And since women do not seem to benefit from reduced cholesterol levels (in the absense of other risk factors) the CRP -statin link is a pretty big deal for primary prevention.
As for the side effects.. When you draw the blood for CRP you can also draw blood to see if you will metabolize specific statins in ways that cause muscle pain, blurry vision, etc. There are tests for that. The question is whether the statin used in the JUPITER study (Crestor) can be substituted with other statins.
Now that is what the TIME article should have been about. But I guess the magazine had to devote resources to another hit piece on Israel.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1973295-1,00.html#ixzz0j6iJUqhy
