Health for life

The result of a study publishedin the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archivesjournals finds that statin use in postmenopausal women significantly increases the risk of developing diabetes. In spite of this damning evidence, researchers do not recommend that American Diabetes Association guidelines for primary and secondary prevention should be changed. Statins account for hundreds of billions in pharmaceutical sales each year, and there is scant evidence they do anything to promote cardiovascular or overall health.

In addition to contributing to muscle wasting and metabolic imbalance, this research provides yet another reason to avoid this energy-sapping class of drug. Health-conscious individuals avoid pharmaceuticals at all cost, and there is now compelling research to suggest that everyone should seriously question taking statins to prevent an unnecessary risk of diabetes.

Dr. Annie L. Culver and her team from the Rochester Methodist Hospital, Mayo Clinic in Minnesota analyzed data from the national, multiyear Womens Health Initiative (WHI) to garner results for this study. Researchers analyzed data to include 153,840 women without diabetes with an average age of 63 years. Statinuse was assessed at enrollment and again in year three. At the outset, 7 percent of the women reported taking a statin medication.

The scientists found 10,242 new cases of diabetes and determined that statin use was positively associated with an increased risk of diabetes. The association remained after adjusting for other potential variables, including age, race or ethnicity and body mass index, and was observed for all types of statins. Dr. Culver noted “The results of this study imply that statin use conveys an increased risk of new-onset DM (diabetes mellitus) in postmenopausal woman.”

A deeper analysis of the data found that diabetes incidence increased in this cohort of postmenopausal women by 71%. Amazingly, the result of this study has received no media attention. The scant coverage that has been published fully discounts the additional risk burden and continues to tout the ‘heart-healthy’ benefits of statin use. The real truth is that statins are anti-energy by core means of operation. Any time you reduce the energy function of a cell you reduce the ability of that cell to burn calories as fuel.

Low cellular energyfunction creates metabolic inefficiency and insulin resistance, with increased fatigue and eventual type 2 diabetes. Statins are a recipe for metabolic disaster, yet millions of unsuspecting women and men continue to blindly swallow these ‘magic pills’ in the belief that they can continue to consume a poor diet and have full immunity against heart disease and a host of other chronic illnesses ascribed to statin use. The evidence is in and it couldn’t be clearer for those individuals with the will to listen and the desire to dramatically lower their risk of becoming diabetic.