The Dumbest Drugs Of All?

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Hello, this is my maiden entry. I am the author of The Doctor Who Cures Cancer and It's Not Just For Sex, hence the name given to this blog. You're invited to bookmark this page or RSS it (I think) for more amazing news. As one reviewer of The Doctor Who Cures Cancer noted, "Nobody writes like that!"

Without further ado:

What are the dumbest prescription drugs of all? There are good arguments that could be made for quite a few. But there is one class of drugs that might make you forget everything: the statin drugs to lower cholesterol.

Why are statins dumb? Because these drugs that are supposed to protect your heart and arteries CAUSE heart attacks! At least that is what Samuel Weigle, M.D., told me one afternoon. He's a local anesthesiologist I know.

Dr. Weigle said, "They lower cholesterol and cause heart attacks." They do this by lowering a compound that gives the heart it's energy, namely CoQ10. Weigle based his opinion on several scientific papers he'd read.

As a matter of fact, one major drug company patented two statin drugs (US Patent #'s 4933165 & 4929437) that contained CoQ10. Which means the drug maker was well aware of the problem.

But they decided not to sell it because that would have been an admission that their statin drug was risky. Furthermore, there isn't enough CoQ10 being made to have enough for all the patients taking statins. So Merck and the other drug makers sell their dumb products without any CoQ10 even though they know it's a recognized problem....sheesh, they recognize the danger.

In Canada, the package inserts tell the careful reader that the drugs do indeed reduce CoQ10. But that warning is absent from statins sold in the US.

But that isn't all the statins do. They can also cause temporary, and potentially dangerous, Global Amnesia. Dr. Graveline, an astronaut and physician found this out first hand. In his second episode, which lasted 12 frightful hours, he lost his memory all the way back through medical school. He had no recollection of any of it! In other words, he was temporarily 'dumb.'

So the drugs that are supposed to help your heart have a history both of causing heart attacks and causing startling memory problems.

As of 2006, there were 20 million statin patients in the US and another 3.6 million in the UK. As usage continues, a looming spike in heart attacks and dementia may follow.

So today's award for dumbest drugs goes to the statins.
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William Kelley Eidem is the author of The Doctor Who Cures Cancer and is also the author of It's Not Just For Sex.