Statins Do Not Extend Life, Not Even By A Day
by Heidi Stevenson
4 August 2009
There's data missing from nearly all statin studies—death rates from all causes. The true indicator of whether these drugs extend life is not included in most statin studies.
The goal in taking any drug is to live better and longer. That should be obvious. Reality, though, doesn't necessarily match reason, and statins are a prime example. Most are prescribed and taken by people with no history of heart disease. There's a push now to have nearly everyone over age 40 or 50, or with cholesterol levels above a certain point—a level that includes nearly everyone over the age of 25 or so—to take statins.
The American Academy of Pediatrics now pushes for cholesterol screening of all children, with drug treatment for any child whose levels are over their definition of normal cholesterol. Since cholesterol levels that are too low harm mental functioning,(1) consider what this might mean for children's mental development.
Obviously, though, since the APA recommends putting children on statins and the consensus seems to be that statins are needed by the vast majority of adults, this must mean that statins will make you live longer...right?
No! There isn't one shred of evidence that taking statins extends life by a single day in people who don't have active heart disease. They are brilliantly successful, though, in extending the size of pharmaceutical companies' pockets.
How is this sleight of hand achieved? It's the trickery of statistics and choosing which data to report. You don't really believe that most modern medical studies reveal all the data, do you?
Statin Research Prestidigitation
Modern medical studies use a wide array of techniques to skew the results. One of the best ways to confuse things is by not offering all the data. It may seem that not including data would be so obvious that no one could get away with it. It is, though, one of the easiest tricks to pull off.
Saving Lives?
Where do all the statistics proclaiming life saving benefits of statin use come from? Magic, of course—the magic of picking and choosing which information to include in a study report, and presenting information in a manner that misleads. The point of this article isn't to examine all the methods studies use to trick us into believing that treatments and pharmaceuticals are effective. We'll focus on the two primary techniques used in statin trials:
- Ignoring deaths from all causes.
- Presenting life extension data out of context.
Ignoring Deaths From All Causes
The first method, ignoring deaths from all causes, is quite routine. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, in his book, The Great Cholesterol Con, refers to this as the elephant "sitting in the middle of the room...quietly cleaning its tusks". He calls this elephant, "Nellie the total mortality data". He reports on his inability to get total mortality data from researchers.
The first method, ignoring deaths from all causes, is quite routine. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, in his book, The Great Cholesterol Con, refers to this as the elephant "sitting in the middle of the room...quietly cleaning its tusks...the total mortality data." He has tried to get total mortality data from the researchers, but reports that his requests are ignored.
Dr. Kendrick colorfully described how focusing on only one cause of death can twist study results:
If I ran a clinical trial in which I gave half the people a lethal dose of botulinum toxin, and gave the other half a placebo. I would reduce the rate of death from CV diseases to zero in botulinum group.
I could then claim that botulinum toxin provides complete protection against heart disease, as no-one in this group died of a heart attack. However, the statistics on overall mortality might not look so good.
In a less extreme version, if you give high dose statins to half the population and this prevents death from CV disease……so what, if all you have done is to change what is written on the death certificate, not the date.(1)
Presenting Life Extension Data Out of Context
The second method of obfuscating statin research results, presenting life extension data out of context, is a bit more difficult to describe. First, note that there is a group of people who do benefit from statins. These are generally older men who have existing heart disease.
The unit generally used in statin trials is "lives saved". It sounds good, but what does it mean? Let's take, as an example, the claim made regarding the HPS study, which focused on patients at very high risk of death from heart disease, not people whose blood levels are over an arbitrary level. It said that 50,000 lives would be saved every year if 10 million people went onto statin treatment. That translates into 1 person out of 200 - not quite as impressive as "50,000 lives saved". But even that relatively small number doesn't present the full truth.
Note: Women have not been shown to benefit from statins, period. With or without existing heart disease, statins do not provide benefit to women.
What really matters is how taking statin drugs will affect your life. Statins don't prevent death. At best, they may put it off. So "lives saved" doesn't have much meaning. The real question is how much longer people live. So, let's take another look at the real meaning of saving the life of 1 person in 200 each year.
This statistic actually means that, if people at high risk from heart disease take statins for one year, then the average extension in life would be less than two days. It's not so impressive when you look at it this way—but this is the realistic view. The real issue is the personal effect of taking them. Would your life be saved? In fact, it would not. Is there a good chance your life would be extended? Yes. If you are at high risk of death from heart disease, after a year of taking statins, the odds are that you would live two more days. Are you impressed?
If presenting the effectiveness of statins in this way seems like another way of twisting stats, consider that this is how studies in cancer present results. It's in terms of life extension, not lives saved. What matters is the effect on you, and that can better be measured in the likelihood of extending life, not in terms of lives saved.
Do Statins Extend Life in People Without Heart Disease?
It's a bit tougher to examine the question of whether statins extend life in people who haven't exhibited signs of heart disease. The primary point to note is that most studies do not include overall mortality figures. Without these, it's impossible to be sure. However, one must question why such data are not included. If they did demonstrate that people live longer by taking statins, wouldn't that information be included?
Nonetheless, one intrepid researcher did manage to do a study of results from pre-existing trials on statin use, including those with heart disease and those without it. Dr. Graham Jackson reviewed nearly all statin studies done before 2000. He reported in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology:
Long term use of statins for primary prevention of heart disease produced a 1% greater risk of death over ten years vs placebo when the result of all the big controlled trials reported before 2000 were combined.
There is no valid documentation showing that taking statins is of any value in people who do not have heart disease. In truth, statins can do great harm, as documented in Statins Send Minds Down the Memory Hole, which focuses on memory loss, but also touches on other risks associated with them. While it is true that men—and only men—with pre-existing heart disease, such as those who have already had heart attacks, may benefit from taking statins, there is no justification for their use in anyone else.
It is true that statins can reduce serum cholesterol, and quite significantly. This, though, does not translate into protection against heart disease. To understand why, read Cholesterol Doesn't Cause Heart Disease
Instead of the headlong push into taking statins, treating them as if they were no riskier than taking a placebo, it's time to put a halt to the insanity.
