Why Statins are Bad for the Brain
by Julian Whitaker, M.D.

More Reasons Not to Take Statins

Lowering cholesterol is not an end in itself
Besides their serious side effects—cognitive problems, muscle pain and weakness, fatigue, liver damage, and even heart failure—these drugs are just not all that helpful. Yes, they lower cholesterol, but lowering cholesterol should not be an end in itself; rather, it should be a means of reducing risk of heart attack and death from heart disease. In this regard, statins fail miserably.


Science does not support

Statins are not beneficial for women
Not a single study shows that statins are beneficial for women. Not one!

The largest randomized clinical trial of statins in women found that those who took Lipitor actually had 10 percent more heart attacks than women taking a placebo.

Statins are not beneficial to anyone over age 70
Nor is there any research suggesting that these drugs prevent heart attacks or extend life for anyone over age 70—women or men—including those at high risk of heart disease.

The same goes for younger men who have a high cholesterol level but no other significant risk factors for heart disease—statins just don’t help. In fact, potential cardiovascular benefits are counterbalanced by equivalent increases in death and debility from other causes. Yet millions of low-risk men, older men, and women of all ages take these drugs daily.

Only those with two or more high risk factors benefit
The only people ever shown in clinical studies to benefit at all from these drugs are middle-aged men at high risk of heart attack (high risk being defined as having existing coronary artery disease, diabetes, disease of the blood vessels to the brain or extremities, or two or more risk factors, such as hypertension and smoking).

But even for this group, there are far safer and more effective ways to lower risk than these very dangerous drugs.




Recommendations:

• If you are taking a cholesterol-lowering statin drug, discuss this information with your physician—or find one who is willing to by visiting acam.org or calling (888) 439-6891. To schedule an appointment at the Whitaker Wellness Institute, call (800) 488-1500 or visit whitakerwellness.com.
• I highly recommend Dr. Graveline’s books, Lipitor, Thief of Memory, available at amazon.com, and Statin Drugs Side Effects, sold at spacedoc.net. To order CDs of my interviews with Dr. Golomb and Dr. Graveline, visit healthytalkradio.com.
• If you or someone you know has had an adverse reaction to a statin drug, report it on statineffects.com and spacedoc.net.
• To learn more about safe, natural therapies for preventing and treating heart disease, read Reversing Heart Disease, available at (800) 810-6655, or visit the Subscriber Center at drwhitaker.com.

References

• Elias PK et al. Serum cholesterol and cognitive performance in the Framingham Heart Study. Psychosom Med. 2005 Jan-Feb;67(1):24–30.
• Golomb BA. Impact of statin adverse events in the elderly. Expert Opin Drug Saf. 2005;4(3):389–397.
• Muldoon MF et al. Randomized trial of the effects of simvastatin on cognitive functioning in hypercholesterolemic adults. Am J Med. 2004;117(11):823–829.
• Pfrieger FW. Role of cholesterol in synapse formation and function. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2003 Mar 10;1610(2):271–280.
• Physicians’ Desk Reference, 61st Edition. Montvale, NJ: Thompson PDR; 2007.
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Julian Whitaker, MD, has practiced medicine for more than 30 years, after receiving degrees from Dartmouth College and Emory University. In 1979 he founded the Whitaker Wellness Institute, located in Newport Beach, CA. For more information on the clinic, call (800) 488-1500 or visit www.whitakerwellness.com.

Dr. Julian Whitaker is the author of 13 health books, including Reversing Hypertension, The Memory Solution, Shed 10 Years in 10 Weeks, The Pain Relief Breakthrough, Reversing Heart Disease, Reversing Diabetes, and Dr. Whitaker's Guide to Natural Healing.

Why Statins are Bad for the Brain
by Julian Whitaker, M.D.


How Statins Harm the Brain
When you really think about it, it’s obvious that these drugs would adversely affect cognition.

Your brain contains an abundance of cholesterol, much of it in the myelin sheaths that insulate the neurons and speed up nerve conduction. Recent research reveals that cholesterol is also required for the formation of synapses, the areas between neurons where nerve impulses are transmitted and received.

In fact, cholesterol is so important that it is manufactured by the glial cells in the supportive tissues of the brain.

Curbing synthesis of such a crucial compound has an inevitable downside. Suicide and violent behavior have long been linked to very low cholesterol levels.

Now, data from the ongoing Framingham Heart Study demonstrates that older people with low total cholesterol (under 200) are much more likely to perform poorly on tests of mental function than those with high cholesterol (over 240).

These drugs harm the brain in other ways as well. As you may know, the enzyme pathway that statins disrupt in order to suppress cholesterol production is also involved in the synthesis of coenzyme Q10, which is required for energy production in the mitochondria of the cells. When you block that enzyme, cholesterol goes down, but so does CoQ10—by as much as 50 percent in some patients!

Low CoQ10 Levels = Bad News
The brain, heart, and skeletal muscles are the body’s most voracious consumers of energy, and it’s only natural that these are the systems most acutely affected by inadequate stores of CoQ10. Deficiencies in this essential compound are known to underlie the muscle problems and heart failure so often linked with statins. It’s high time we recognize that CoQ10 depletion is also a factor in cognitive dysfunction and other neurological consequences of these drugs.

Statins also appear to adversely affect tau, a protein made by brain cells that helps maintain their structure. Abnormal tau proteins promote the formation of the neurofibrillary tangles that appear in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Abnormalities in tau proteins are also linked to other neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease). Among the thousands of patient stories Dr. Graveline has amassed are a disturbing number with these and other serious neurological problems. He, I, and others believe the link with cholesterol-lowering drugs is clear and unequivocal.





Julian Whitaker, MD, has practiced medicine for more than 30 years, after receiving degrees from Dartmouth College and Emory University. In 1979 he founded the Whitaker Wellness Institute, located in Newport Beach, CA. For more information on the clinic, call (800) 488-1500 or visit www.whitakerwellness.com.

Dr. Julian Whitaker is the author of 13 health books, including Reversing Hypertension, The Memory Solution, Shed 10 Years in 10 Weeks, The Pain Relief Breakthrough, Reversing Heart Disease, Reversing Diabetes, and Dr. Whitaker's Guide to Natural Healing.

Why Statins are Bad for the Brain
by Julian Whitaker, M.D.

Typical examples
A retired professor of business law and computer science who was taking Zocor to lower his cholesterol was diagnosed with rapidly progressing probable Alzheimer’s disease. It got to the point that he had trouble carrying on conversations and recognizing people he’d known for 20 years, and long-term care was looming. After hearing about the association between statins and memory loss, he stopped taking Zocor, and over the next few months his cognitive function returned to normal.

A successful 50-year-old business owner started taking Lipitor in 1998. Within three years he was wracked with pain and weakness, and his memory and concentration were so poor that he was forced to close his business. Although he’s improved somewhat since getting off Lipitor, he continues to have severe cognitive problems.

Seeing split wood scattered all over her porch, strange footprints in the snow, and a plate of partially eaten food in her kitchen, a 69-year-old woman became convinced that someone had broken into her house. The next day, she realized that the footprints were hers—but she had absolutely no memory of what happened. After stroke, blood clots, and other causes were ruled out in the ER a few days later, she was told she had experienced temporary loss of memory, or transient global amnesia (TGA), of unknown origin. She had started taking Lipitor four months before.

A woman reports, “My husband has been on Lipitor for years, and I/we have noticed that more and more his memory and focus have been impaired. We are told that there is no such evidence that Lipitor could cause this. I have watched my husband change from a Harvard Business School graduate who could accomplish more in four hours than most could in four days to someone who has already had a TGA attack and, in the two years since, has become more forgetful, unable to complete tasks, loses track of time...”

Statins’ Second-Most Common Side Effect
These are not isolated incidents. After muscle pain and weakness, cognitive problems are the second-most common side effect of Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Mevacor, and other cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Hundreds of cases of statin-induced memory loss and TGA have been reported to MedWatch, the FDA’s system for filing adverse drug events. And these are just the tip of the iceberg.

That’s because people taking these drugs—more than 12 million in the United States—who develop memory problems are unlikely to put the two together. They aren’t warned sufficiently on drug labels or inserts about this adverse effect, nor do they hear about it in TV, newspaper, and magazine ads. Doctors aren’t telling them about it either, largely because they don’t know about it themselves.

Doctors: Don’t Know, Don’t Tell
Take Lipitor, for example, the best-selling drug in the United States. The Physicians’ Desk Reference includes reasonable mentions of the potential for liver toxicity, muscle aches, and weakness. However, nowhere does it allude to Lipitor’s cognitive side effects other than a one-word mention of “amnesia” in a long list of things purported to have occurred in less than two percent of patients. And in the clinical studies on the drugs—virtually all of which are funded by drug companies—benefits are emphasized while adverse effects are downplayed. To make matters worse, government and cardiology “opinion leaders” are so conflicted by drug money that they ignore the obvious red flags.

Without this awareness, physicians and patients alike are much more likely to attribute declining memory or blackout spells to dementia, stroke, or just old age than to cholesterol-lowering drugs. In fact, if a patient complains about memory problems related to the drugs, the doctor will almost always discount it.

But the word is getting out, thanks to people like former astronaut Duane Graveline, MD, MPH, and researcher Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD.

Lipitor Caused Complete Amnesia
In 1999, Dr. Graveline was put on Lipitor to lower his moderately elevated cholesterol. Six weeks later, his wife found him wandering around their driveway, unable to recognize her, or his surroundings. She managed to get him to his doctor, who was perplexed by this episode of severe memory loss, which passed after a few hours. Dr. Graveline, who was in excellent health, had a hunch that Lipitor was involved because he had just started taking it, and it was the only drug he was on. His doctor disregarded his concerns and, a year later, talked him into getting back on the drug. Sure enough, he had another episode of TGA, this one lasting 12 hours.

Despite his physician’s naysaying, Dr. Graveline was convinced that Lipitor had caused his problems. When he came across the Statin Effects Study, headed by Dr. Golomb of the University of California, San Diego, he was vindicated. Since 2000, Dr. Golomb has been gathering case reports of patients who have had changes in thinking, mood, and behavior while on statin drugs.

I recently interviewed Dr. Golomb on my radio show, and she told me that while physicians might not make the association between memory problems and statin drug use—or take the time to report adverse events—patients trying to get to the bottom of their problems have a vested interest in doing so. So far, she has received more than 4,000 reports of cognitive dysfunction—some of them so severe they were diagnosed as rapidly progressing Alzheimer’s disease.

Once Dr. Graveline made his experience public, he, too, was inundated with reports of statin-related amnesia, forgetfulness, disorientation, and other memory problems. His Web site, spacedoc.net, and message board contain nearly 10,000 accounts of statin damage, plus a plethora of information on the adverse effects of these drugs.

To be continued in Part 2




Julian Whitaker, MD, has practiced medicine for more than 30 years, after receiving degrees from Dartmouth College and Emory University. In 1979 he founded the Whitaker Wellness Institute, located in Newport Beach, CA. For more information on the clinic, call (800) 488-1500 or visit www.whitakerwellness.com.

Dr. Julian Whitaker is the author of 13 health books, including Reversing Hypertension, The Memory Solution, Shed 10 Years in 10 Weeks, The Pain Relief Breakthrough, Reversing Heart Disease, Reversing Diabetes, and Dr. Whitaker's Guide to Natural Healing.

Tardive Dyskinesia- repetitive, involuntary, purposeless movements.  Grimacing, tongue protrusion,  lip smacking, rapid eye blinking and rapid involuntary movements of the limbs may occur.  Walking may become difficult. 

In some variant extreme cases, affected individuals lose their ability to sit still.  Tardive dyskinesia is often misdiagnosed as a mental illness or ADHD. 

The facts are all there in wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_dyskinesia  And in the FDA black label website.http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/ucm170934.htm  And in attorney websites looking for victims to sue the makers of Reglan.

The other morning 'tardive dyskinesia' popped into my head.  I thought, "That's weird." 

I remembered learning about tardive dyskinesia in my psych class in nursing school.  It happens to patients who are on long term psych meds.  I recognized it in a few patients in the lock-down unit of a nursing home I once worked at when I was a CNA.  That was a long time ago.

Why did tardive dyskinesia pop into my head today?    I googled it.

I saw an attorney website claiming that Reglan causes tardive dyskinesia and would anyone like to sue the makers of Reglan?  Call that attorney.  That's weird, i gave Reglan all the time as nurse to patients in the hospital.  It was standard.  I wondered if it was likely my patients were affected.

I found more websites, like the FDA website that reports Reglan is highly linked to tardive dyskinesia.  I read that tardive dyskinesia is permanent.  You can stop taking Reglan, but the tongue protrusions, grimacing and involuntary movements don't go away.  That is sad.  Socially debilitating. 

Then I found a slew of sites that blew my mind!

Women are advised to take Reglan to increase breast milk!  What?!!

Does it get into the breastmilk?   Yes, one site said, but not more than is normally given to babies with reflux.  

What?!!!  Reglan is given to babies?

No, no, no!  Is it worth the risk of permanent neurological damage to have more breast milk?  There are herbs and stress reduction techniques that can increase breast milk.  There are gentler ways to deal with infant reflux.   Why give prescription chemicals to a baby that risk permanent damage?  Why even give a small dose?  Why even give for a shorter time than it takes to get permanent damage? 

If it takes 12 weeks to get noticeable permanent damage, less than 12 weeks does not cause any damage at all?  It doesn't make sense.  Any dose for any length of time begins to cause changes in the brain that are noticeable and permanent after only 12 weeks.  It doesn't sound safe to me.  Tardive dyskinesia occurs in a large enough portion of the population that the FDA has made black box warnings.  Feeble warnings.  Warnings that no one is even aware of.

How many babies and children already have tardive dyskinesia but are misdiagnosed?  

Maybe it is not many...but if it is you or your precious little one, it is one too many.

This is not to scare you.  This is to inform you so you can know the risks (if you want to know them) and make better decisions that you are happy with. 

If you don't want to know the risks, you better leave right now, ha ha!

I am building this site to inform you about harmful drug reactions that the drug companies don't want you to know about. 

Most doctors are too busy to be able to properly discuss all the problems with the meds they are prescribing.  Sometimes patients who know about all the possible side effects will probably experience them just by the placebo effect, so it's better if we don't bring it up.  Right?

Well I am bringing it up. 

I hope you will come back as I develop the list.

Here are a few adverse reactions to get started with:

NSAIDS: Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs  such as most arthritis medications, and ibuprophen (and aspirin) are so highly linked to severe gastrointestinal bleeding that it has developed its' own disease name: NSAID Gastropathy

Oral contraceptives and Hormone Replacement Therapy are highly linked to blood clots, strokes and heart attacks, but we already know that, right?

Statins: cholesterol lowering drugs are highly linked to liver problems like hepatitis, severe muscle degeneration and early dementia

Macrolide antibiotics like Erythromycin is linked to hepatitis and long QT syndrome. 

Pepcid, Effexor, Zoloft, Paxil and many antidepressants are linked with QT prolongation under certain conditions.

The QT interval is the resting phase of the heart rhythm. Prolongation of the QT interval elongates the resting phase of the heart.  Congenital long QT syndrome is when someone is born with a long QT interval.  It is linked to torsades de pointe, which is an unsustainable heart rhythm.  QT prolongation and the chances of a drug-induced fatal heart rhythm are very small in healthy adults.  But the elderly, children and babies are susceptible.   Many of these drugs affect the normal beating of the heart and we don't even know it.

What does this mean?  Many of the drugs we think are completely harmless have been linked with QT prolongation!  That means these drugs prolong the resting phase of the heart. Many of these drugs affect the normal beating of the heart and we don't even know it!

These drugs have the potential to change the heart rhythm.  Millions of healthy adults take these drugs and don't notice a thing.  At risk are the elderly and the very young and those who have long QT syndrome to begin with. 

Who knows how many babies on Propulsid for reflux died not from SIDS, but from a prolongated QT?  Or how many of the elderly on Propulsid for GERD died not from a sudden heart attack but from drug-induced torsades?  Those stats will never be known.  No one reports it, if it can be explained as SIDS or a heart attack.  For years there hasn't been a way to report it.  Doctors hate to think a harmless drug they prescribed everyday could cause sudden death.  Drug companies squash that information.

To ease your mind, millions and millions of people take these drugs and don't instantly die.  The statistics show that the drugs are relatively safe compared to the millions of people who take them.  

Adverse drug reactions are unintended, harmful reactions to medicines.  According to the world Health Organization, adverse drug reactions are among the leading causes of death in many countries.