Originally Posted by
garydogwood
do they insure or ensure? not trying to be a spelling police - but it does have a different meaning depending on which one. probably "ensure" .
yea, i trust the fda and any other govt agency that "ensures" my safety about as much as I trust ... uhh, ... a government agency (which is very little).
i stopped taking statin about a year ago. i may drop dead any minute but i feel good and my triglycerides are way in the safe zone. cholesterol is a bit high though. depending on what / where you read, there is some conflicting information on the negative impact of "high" cholesterol, depending on how high it is. kind of a coincidence the acceptable level of cholesterol keeps going down over the years. surely it has nothing to do with drug companies trying to sell more drugs. drugs are our friend.
if i do drop dead i want to be the healthiest dead person in the neighborhood.
gw
No, there is no golden cut off point where you are going to die if your LDL is above that specific number. Like blood pressure, it is a range of good to concerning to bad to OMG...
And, you are right, the numbers have changed. A few years ago the LDL target was 130. Now it's 100 - unless you have diabetes then it's 70. And, yes, medical research is driven primarily by the drug companies. So it is unlikely the target would have come down without their influence. But I think more importantly is the belief that if "130 is good, 100 must be better". I don't know of any specific trials that prove 100 should be the target. It seemed to me to simply just be more of a consensus.
But, I think most good physicians would strongly agree with you that if you can get your numbers in range by diet and exercise, then by all means, flush the statin down the toilet.