Health Alert 180
My office recently received a fax that worries me. It was an offer for an easy way to earn the education credits I need to renew my license to practice medicine. You may know that doctors are required to earn continuing medical education (CME) credits. But, did you know that drug companies are sponsoring this “education”?
If you’ve been wondering why doctors seem more and more likely to tell you that you need to take a drug, today you’ll see one of the biggest reasons for the institutionalization of this one-dimensional approach.
And, you’ll learn some practical tips on how to avoid the untoward consequences of this troubling conflict of interest.
* Doctors Getting Tainted Education *
The fax that I received contained selected reports from a conference on cholesterol. The University of Alabama School of medicine will give doctors free CME credit if they read research studies about statin drugs. But only if you read the fine print, could you learn the true sponsor, Merck Pharmaceuticals. Merck makes Mevacor, the original statin drug.
Not surprisingly, the conclusions drawn are: more patients need to take statin drugs, many should take higher doses, and many need to take statin drugs along with other lipid lowering agents.1 In other words, the current dosing of statin drugs isn’t doing the trick. They want more people to take the drug and those who are already taking them to take higher doses or multiple drugs.
Hmm… If you were in charge of marketing a product that you sell billions of dollars worth, it cost you $0.31 for a month supply that you’ve been selling for about $100 … What would you do?
In part, the drug companies are only doing what for-profit companies do – forever striving to increase profits. But they cross the line when they peddle this marketing as education. What’s more, doctors appear to be learning about these drugs not from mass marketing but from universities.
The majority of doctors ignore the fine print on the bottom of the studies. The carefully orchestrated release of studies along with easy CME credits keep doctors convinced that drugs are essential for cholesterol control and keep the drugs fresh on their minds.
There is no mention in this educational requirement for doctors to learn effective exercise programs, nutrition changes or natural supplements. This omission is huge, since this is almost entirely a disease caused by nutritional and activity related issues. Nature did not design millions of American’s statin drug deficient.
If we focus our management of this problem on statin drugs, we needlessly put millions in harms way. I have written about the dangers of these drugs many times before (see Health Alerts 4, 5 & 35). Statin drugs cause a number of negative side effects including coenzyme Q10 deficiency, hypertension, kidney failure, muscular aches, insomnia, fatigue and the sometimes lethal bursting of muscle cells.
What’s more, blood cholesterol levels are not great indicators of heart attacks. The Framingham Heart Study showed that 80% of heart attack patients had cholesterol profiles identical to people who did not have heart attacks. It also showed that high HDL (good cholesterol) levels trump other cholesterol concerns for avoiding heart disease. 2
New and unbiased research is focusing on the dangers and ineffectiveness of statin drugs. The American Medical Association published a study from the University of Toronto that demonstrates that a healthy diet is as effective as drugs in controlling cholesterol.3 Studies like this will not get the press that the drug companies studies do. But they carry more validity precisely because they are not dependent on drug company funding.
* Take Back Control of Your Own Health *
Exercise is the best way to balance your cholesterol levels. The biggest independent (Framingham) heart study confirms this. The PACE program is a simple and easy way to do this (see Health Alerts 28, 58 & 146). Doing short bursts of exercise daily helps you lower LDL cholesterol, increase testosterone and raise HDL cholesterol.
Of course, a heart-healthy diet is important. This means: eating whole, unadulterated foods and following a low-carb diet. Grass fed red meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables that grow above ground and all nuts except peanuts are good choices.
I often recommend 10 mg/day of the natural and very safe supplement, Policosanol for my patients who need to lower cholesterol. It will positively affect your total and LDL cholesterol levels. Garlic is another fantastic way to lower cholesterol. When you choose a supplement, make sure it has an odor. The odor comes from the heart- healthy sulfur compounds in garlic. I chew on a clove and then brush my teeth with peppermint (another heart- healthy herb).
Al Sears, MD
1. 1 University of Alabama School of Medicine, Division of Continuing Medical Education, CME by Fax, Highlights in Hyperlipidemia Treatment, April 7, 2004
2. 2 Gordon, et. al. High density lipoprotein as a protective factor against coronary heart disease. The Framingham Study Am J Med 1997 May; 62(5); 707-714
3. 3 Effects of a Dietary Portfolio of Cholesterol-Lowering Foods vs Lovastatin on Serum Lipids and C-Reactive Protein, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 290, July 23, 2003 www.jama.com