Cholesterol Lowering Meds for Everyone? Wait a Minute…
(spectroscopynow)
The role of cholesterol in heart disease is well documented so when reports about this study came out in today’s New York Times about the benefits of providing cholesterol lowering drugs (specifically Crestor) even to people without heart disease or high cholesterol, I was pretty excited to read more.
What the 18,000 people in this study did have was high levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation. Turns out however, that the study was funded by AstraZeneca, the makers of Crestor and the lead author of the study, has financial ties to the company.
C-reactive protein is a non-specific marker of inflammation – this means that many things can cause this to be elevated, among them infection. Stephen Christensen, MD has written a thoughtful response to today’s NY Times article suggesting further research into the possible connection between an infectious agent and heart disease. His article is entitled, “Crestor, CRP and Inflammation” – I urge you to check it out.
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I am totally confused about cholesterol. My partner was recently told by her doctor that she has high cholesterol. She is tall and slim, a vegetarian, gets plenty of exercise, eats plenty of fruit and vegetables and grains. That night we went out for dinner with our friend Steve who is about 18 stone. As usual, he ordered a veal parmagiana smothered in mozzarella cheese and chips. (He counts the chips as his vegetable intake, and his exercise is walking from the car to the house.) He told us his cholesterol is 2. My partner’s is 7. The doctor told her it’s probably hereditary. But how do you explain Steve? And why do doctors keep going on about a healthy diet?
You raise some good questions Catherine but for our American contingent a few things need to be explained. First, a stone is a measurement of weight equal to 14#s, so someone weighing 18 stones weighs 252#. Secondly, In the U.S., cholesterol is measured by weight (milligrams/deciliter) whereas the English system measures the number of molecules of a substance in the blood.
Having said that I’m not sure if the value you quoted for your partner, 7, represents the total cholesterol value, a ratio, or one of the other components of cholesterol we measure, ie, triglycerides or LDL. I think it’s the total cholesterol level but I’m not sure.
In addidtion, each of these numbers tells a different story, but the general agreement is that high LDLs set us up for heart disease. As you pointed out, for some people, there is a strong genetic component and it can work both ways. By that I mean for some people, their liver will produce too much cholesterol while others will have high values of HDL, the good cholesterol. This could be the case for your friend who doesn’t have to worry about what he eats – at least regarding his cholesterol!
So this guy might win the battle with a lower cholesterol but lose the war with other diseases – and bowel cancer, diabetes come immediately to mind. Abdominal fat has been strongly linked to stroke, diabetes and cancer – it actually can triple the chances for these diseases.
Anyway, great to hear from you Catherine!
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