Info on antidepressants, statins, cholesterol and suicide

Hi Duane! Glad you found it interesting! I take niacin and niacinamide after reading recommendations from Gianna and yourself! Seems to do the trick!

There was yet another feature in yesterday’s Daily Mail (London) newspaper on the dangers of statins…….

Statins are the new NHS wonder drug for cutting cholesterol. But do they have sinister side-effects?

Lower intelligence, memory problems, nightmares, depression, suicide…

By John Naish
10th March 2009

Could statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs taken by more than three million Britons, be doing more harm than good to many thousands of patients? This is the rather alarming suggestion to emerge from two new studies.

The research challenges the medical convention that lowering your cholesterol is always a good thing – indeed, they suggest statins may affect intelligence, cause depression and even raise the risk of suicide.

The studies add to a growing body of evidence that having low cholesterol levels may prove as dangerous as having high readings……………….

The article in full, together with 55 overwhelmingly negative comments from readers, is here…

I can never work out the Daily Mail newspaper. It is owned by the Rothermere press dynasty, headed today by the billionaire Jonathan Harmsworth, the 3rd Viscount Rothermere.. Yet sometimes, especially on medical matters, the newspaper stands up for the little people!

Sloopy

Hi Gianna!

I just read an article on statins in the popular national newspaper, the Daily Mail.

The article is titled “The Hidden (And Painful) Cost of Statins)” and was authored by Dr Andrew Bamji, a consultant rheumatologist in England.

Dr Bamji was taking statins until things went “horribly wrong”…

Like so many other users of statins, Dr Bamji suffered excrutiating muscle pain. Here’s the start of his article..

About a million Britons take statins to reduce their cholesterol – now American medics are suggesting at least 80 per cent of men over 50 and women over 60 should be prescribed them.

One expert who is far from convinced is Dr Andrew Bamji, a consultant in rheumatology and rehabilitation at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup. He was on statins until things went horribly wrong…

As a rheumatologist, my job is to help people with joint problems and arthritic complaints. So it was with some irony that I diagnosed myself with tenosynovitis – a severe tendon inflammation I often treat in my patients.

But the greater irony was that this chronically painful problem had been triggered by the statins I’d been prescribed to lower my cholesterol. The very pill that was supposed to be improving my health was actually making it worse.

Statins are the ‘wonder drugs’ enthusiastically prescribed for people whose cholesterol is considered to be significantly raised. Yes, it’s generally accepted that if you’ve had a heart attack, statins are an important tool in preventing another. But the problem is that these drugs are being handed out willy-nilly, with very little apparent benefit.

The article in full is here….

Of equal interest are the readers’ comments on that article..
So far, 20 of the 21 comments are very anti-statin. That’s an extraordinary ratio!

The solitary comment from the pro-statin camp doesn’t actually dispute the enormity of the problem but blames the government for not taking action. Don’t blame Big Pharma or us medics – it’s all the Government’s fault! This epidemic of statin damage could easily be avoided by simply screening for some crucial enzyme that our wonder drugs are believed to destroy!

Thanks for posting this, Gianna!

That’s a really good site you have discovered there. I just printed out half a dozen pages on statins for someone to read.

It’s so difficult to come by sceptical reports on the latest ‘wonder drugs’. By hook or by crook, the pharmaceutical industry has blocked most avenues for honest reporting in the media.

Thank God for consumer-run websites like this one!