Statins in Our Water Supply?
The American Heart Association and Big Pharma won't be satisfied until every man, woman and child has been put on a statin drug. Some doctors are so gung-ho about statins, that they've even suggested it should be put in the water supply-the way fluoride is in some areas! Just what we need-more junk in the water in the name of "public good."
Who are they kidding?
Literally, the American Heart Association and the drug companies are looking for a fresh new set of recruits for statin usage. And their target is now children and adolescents.
Soon, there will be a brigade of statin drug reps marching into the office of your children's and grandchildren's pediatrician. I guess Big Pharma isn't satisfied that statins are the most prescribed drug in the world, with a market worth over $27 billion-making them the first-ever "blockbuster" drug.
It clearly isn't enough for them that guidelines continue to be lowered, netting more and more people into the Camp of Statin-need, making this remain the perennial best seller that it is.
They've been foraging for greener pastures, and it looks like the American Heart Association has delivered. I would suggest you hide the little ones, lest the statin-frenzy scoop them up in its ever-widening net.
The caveat for this latest guideline is that the use of these statin drugs be confined to those children who have "high-risk lipid abnormalities." Those would be familial hypercholesterolemia (very high LDL "bad" cholesterol), diabetes, or a family history of cardiovascular disease. That's for now, but I say it's only a matter of time until these guidelines are watered down to include more and more children under "new and improved" guidelines.
The threshold will continue to be lowered to the point where-if you have even a hint of possible risk for heart disease-you'll be swallowing a statin fix so fast, you won't even know what nipped you.
For now, Big Pharma will be aiming for the "family history" crowd. Looking at the lifestyles that people lead, and that should include just about everyone.
What I find to be unnerving is the justification that will be used to support the use in children. In several drug trials that have involved children, there was a similar safety and effectiveness as that found in adults. Following that line of reasoning, that would mean that those kids could expect to have similar side effects as adults, too. These drugs can damage your liver and your muscle tissues, and cause memory and concentration problems. Concentration problems in children? Well, next you'd have to put those kids on an ADHD drug!
The American Heart Association has offered some recommendations to doctors. First, they suggest that the doctor checks the family history in children who have been diagnosed as being overweight or obese. It's also recommended that doctors screen these children by using a fasting lipid profile-a good idea, but not if it's used as a justification to slap a kid on a drug out of the gate! We just have no idea what the adverse effects of these drugs in kids may be, nor do we know what it means to have someone at this age on these drugs for the rest of their lives.
Most importantly, they recommend lifestyle changes first. The way I figure, that recommendation will be quickly forgotten when the pressure is applied by the drug reps to get doctors to start prescribing these statins to any child with even a hint of heart disease risk.
Next think you know, I'll be telling you that they're packaging statins in with the infant formula and breakfast cereals. And I'm only half-kidding-let's hope we don't reach that point where we've collectively accepted insanity as the norm.
In the meantime, let's look at my recommendation:
The vast majority of kids in this country don't get enough healthy omega-3 fats, found in fish, fish oil supplements, walnuts and flax seed. So any kid with a weight problem, a family history of heart disease or an attention problem should be put on at least 1,000 mg total EPA plus DHA per day from fish oil. As it stands now, most are probably getting less than 50 mg!
