"Every Day And In Every Way I Am Getting Better And Better"...
.
.
.
http://www.DailyMail.co.uk/health/article-447325/Cut-price-statins-linked-increase-patient-deaths.html
'... analysis carried out at University Hospital of North Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent shows that three times more Patients on the cheap drug simvastatin died compared to those taking atorvastatin a year earlier. In the three months from December 2004 to February 2005, five out of 100 patients - or five per cent - prescribed atorvastatin died. But 20 of 121 patients - 17 per cent - on simvastatin died between December 2005 and February 2006. ...'
By Jenny Hope Medical Correspondent
Daily Mail
28 May 2008
AT least 1.5million more adults could be prescribed statins to ALLEGEDLY lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Guidance to GPs will recommend a vast expansion in the use of the cholesterol-lowering drugs in a drive to ALLEGEDLY prevent cardiovascular disease.
Anyone aged 40 to 74 who is ALLEGEDLY believed to have a 20 per cent risk of aheart attack or stroke in the next ten years will be eligible.
Around four million adults already take statins. The new guidance means one in eight could end up on the drugs, many of whom will have nothing outwardly wrong with them.
Some experts ALLEGEDLY believe a quarter of Britons could eventually be taking the drugs for life.
It is estimated the guidance will ALLEGEDLY prevent a further 15,000 heart‘events’ each year, such as heart attacks and strokes, in addition to the 7,000 heart attacks already being prevented.
The guidance ALLEGEDLY from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will cost £28million to implement in the first year,although it is expected to save £51million a year in Health Service treatment costs.
GPs will ALLEGEDLY be expected to check their records for patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease, for example those who have a family history,smoke, have high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
Initially, doctors will ALLEGEDLY ensure patients try to reduce their risk through diet, exercise and giving up smoking.
However, healthy patients judged to have a one in five chance of a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years will be offered a daily40mg dose of a generic, non-branded drug called simvastatin.
Dr Tom Marshall, a member of the group that developed the guidelines, ALLEGEDLY said: ‘For every one fatality, there are at least two people who have a major nonfatal cardiovascular event.
‘The guidelines suggest an achievable and realistic strategy for identifying those at high risk, giving them lifestyle advice and offering them treatment, and therefore can ALLEGEDLY be expected to have an impact on the healthcare received by a significant proportion of the population.’
But Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a GP and author of The Great Cholesterol Con, said there was a complete lack of evidence that statins provide any overall health benefit for women at all, or for men without a history of heart disease.
He added: ‘The suggestion that people at low risk should take drugs for the rest of their lives is not supported by the trials. In addition to the lack of benefit and expense, statins carry a substantial burden of side effects.’
These include abdominal pain, diarrhoea and nausea, with the most serious adverse reaction being muscle weakness in about one in 1,000 users ALLEGEDLY. This can progress to a complete breakdown of muscle cells that can lead to kidney failure and death.
Many GPs are letting down patients ALLEGEDLY with heart failure, according to a study in the European Heart Journal.
Fewer than half of family doctors in nine European countries, including the UK, said they would refer pensioners for specialist help. This is despite the typical age range for heart failure ALLEGEDLY being 65 to 80, said Dutch researchers ALLEGEDLY.
ACTIVE men are less likely to die from cancer than couch potatoes, research shows.
It reveals that men who take regular exercise are up to a third less likely to die from cancer than those who do not.
Researchers monitored the health and physical activity of 40,708 men aged between 45 and 79 for seven years.
During this period, 3,714 developed cancer and 1,153 died from the disease.
Men who walked or cycled for at least 30 minutes a day were 34 per cent less likely to die from cancer than those who exercised less or did nothing at all, experts at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm say.
However, the same activities were found only to reduce the chance of developing cancer by 5 per cent, although the researchers claim this could be down to chance.
A more intensive programme of walking and cycling for between an hour and an hour and a half a day was associated with a 16 per cent lower chance of developing the disease.
Dr Lesley Walker, of the charity Cancer Research UK, which published the research in the British Journal of Cancer, said: ‘It’s not entirely clear from this study what role exercise plays in preventing cancer in men, but we do know that a healthy lifestyle can prevent up to half of all cancers .
‘Regular exercise forms a key part of a healthy lifestyle.’
Posts
