What’s Happening: Statins in Review

The new cholesterol guidelines and recommendations for statin treatment got a brief mention in a previous post, but now that the dust has had a chance to settle, take a look at some of the more helpful and well-argued responses from both sides of the debate:

Pro:

• New Cholesterol Guidelines (Science-Based Medicine): Dr. Hall isn’t the most Paleo-friendly blogger around, but she makes some excellent points.
• Should I Take a Statin? And Cholesterol Whiplash (Time) Alice Park gives a very fair overview of the guidelines that busts a lot of myths you might see from the critics.
• An editorial in the British Medical Journal praises the guidelines for targeting overall risk rather than simplifying everything to just one number.

Con:

• 3 Reasons you Should be Skeptical of the New Cholesterol Guidelines (Chris Kresser): a clear, strait-to-the-point summary of the Paleo take on the new rules.
• Critics Warn Latest Cholesterol Guidelines Invite Overtreatment (NPR): a good summary of some of the key arguments against the new guidelines.
• You Need a Statin – Now What Was the Question? (Dr. Malcolm Kendrick): apparently even a perfectly healthy 63-year-old man should be on a statin drug, because…well, because.
• Cholesterol Overhaul (Brian McFadden): a hilarious comic strip poking fun at the statin industry.
• Cholesterol Controversy Shows Medicine Needs Big Data, Not Old Data (Forbes): a fascinating look at the numbers behind the new recommendations, and how they might be inaccurate.
• Bumps in the Road to New Cholesterol Guidelines (New York Times): a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges (including ever-shrinking funding) that plagued the development of the new recommendations.

Most Paleo dieters tend toward skepticism of anything that would increase statin prescriptions, but it’s always interesting to read what the other side has to say about an issue: you never know what interesting perspectives you might be missing!

In other news from around the community this week:

• After a fascinating talk at the Ancestral Health Symposium about Facebook and Paleo, Tony FED is back on the topic of “empty social calories:” how the modern world is just as bad for our brains as it is for our bodies.

• Challenging the Paleo majority once again, Melissa McEwen wonders if many people diagnosed with “gluten sensitivity” are really reacting to FODMAPs instead.

• Have you ever had a vegetarian get on your case about how “meat is murder?” A guest post at Anthony Colpo’s blog this week explains how modern monoculture grain production actually causes more cruelty and animal death than meat.

• If you didn’t get a heritage pastured turkey for the holidays, did you know that your bird was too fat to breed? Modern turkeys have been bred for such distorted and enormous breasts that they literally cannot have sex and must be artificially inseminated.

• The Precision Nutrition blog would like to remind us all that food is information, not fuel, an excellent reminder to dispel any residual holiday guilt. For anyone who’s ever said “food isn’t just fuel” but struggled to articulate exactly what food is, this article might just have your answer.

What do you think of the new statin guidelines? Would you ever take a statin prescription? Let us know on Facebook or Google+.