Improve diet, ditch statins to lower cholestrol – experts

TAKING statins gives the “illusion of protection” from heart disease and strokes when many patients may be better off simply improving their diet, claim leading doctors.

Those at low risk could gain more by eating more nuts and olive oil than being prescribed the drugs, they said. The experts added patients should be told a healthy diet could give similar benefits to cholesterollowering drugs.

In an editorial, the doctors argue that “blanket prescribing” of statins could increase harm from side-effects while giving little benefit to patients newly eligible to take them.

Daily alternatives to statins for those at low risk of heart attack and strokes include eating an apple, a handful of nuts or four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

Tree nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, some pine nuts, pistachios and walnuts contain high levels of “good” fats which can lower harmful fats in the blood. The authors of the editorial in Prescriber journal are cardiologists Dr Aseem Malhotra and Dr Andrew Apps, with Simon Capewell, professor of clinical epidemiology and vice-president elect of the faculty of public health. They question guidance from health standards body Nice last year which make as many as four in 10 adults eligible

for statins.

Ef f e c t ive l y, all healthy men over 60 and healthy women over 65 could be offered drugs to cut their cholesterol. Those with high cholesterol, such as smokers, the obese or with a strong family history of heart problems, could be offered the drugs at an even younger age.

Supporters of the new approach said the drugs were cheap and getting cheaper and thousands of lives would be saved. But a counter argument is that preventing heart disease is being medicalised when unhealthy lifestyles are often to blame.

Previously, doctors prescribed statins only to those with a 30 percent risk of a heart attack within the next decade. This was cut to 20 percent risk in 2005.

Last July, the bar was low- ered further, so those who have a 10 percent or greater 10-year risk can be offered statins, including people over 85.

The British Medical Association said it had no confidence in the new approach as there was “insufficient evidence” of overall benefit to low-risk patients.

Research last year found patients on statins eat more fat and calories, and gain weight faster, than people not taking them, possibly because they offer “false reassurance”.

Independent research found no overall cut in death or serious illness for those at lowest risk on statins. – Daily Mail RESEARCHERS are using injections of belly fat to treat incontinence in men after prostate surgery.

Early research suggests the treatment – using stem cells extracted from abdominal fat – reduced leakage by up to 60 percent, with results being seen within days of the injections. Prostate surgery carries the risk of damaging nerves and muscles surrounding the gland, leading to complications such as impotence and incontinence.

Stem cells can work as an internal repair system to replenish and replace other cells. – Daily Mail