cholesterol lowering drug safe for long term use.

[Iona_Roberts]

have found this recent research on long term use of statins, what's your opinion?

ow.ly/7DkDs

[Aliwally]

If you go to jama.ama-assn.org/content 292/3/331 and look for Efficacy and Safety of Statin Therapy in Children with FH, there is a very positive study from the Netherlands where they followed up children with FH who were treated with pravastatin. The children were aged between 8 and 18 and they checked them for 2 years. There were no adverse effects on their growth etc and their IMT scans showed regression of the thickening of their arteries.

[Iona_Roberts]

hi aliwally, will check out your link, i'm very interested in any reasearch done on children. many thanks

[Aliwally]

Hi Iona,

Your first link refers to the extension of the Heart Protection Study doesn't it? They have now followed up people (not FH population though) for 11 years. Some were taking simvastatin 40mg and some a placebo. Good news is that rates of cancer were exactly the same in both groups.

This is only a personal opinion and I will research more, but although the rates of having a first event were better in the statin groups, I don't think they were as spectacular as some headliines are saying. This does not apply to those of us with FH or other inherited disorders.

[smithy]

Hi all,

as a recently diagnosed, post CAD, T2 diabetic on exercise an diet regime to control the diabetes, and a current High dose (80mg) Atorvastatin taker, who is admittedly a statin sceptic, i found the following link quite interesting aboutlawsuits.com/lipitor-c...

any views?

tony

[Aliwally]

Hi Smithy,

Thanks for interesting link. The article did say that that they thought the benefits of statins outweighed the cases of diabetes.

Purely anecdotal, but when I was on rosuvastatin (only for a couple of months, as I couldn't tolerate it) my blood sugar spiked to the highest it has ever been. I am not diabetic, but have levels in the highest range of "normal".