Ever had your cholesterol tested?
Ever read or heard something about cholesterol and heart attacks?
Ever been prescribed (or had a discussion about) a ‘statin‘ drug?
Doctors like to check your cholesterol. It gives us all a feeling of doing something.
Read this essay from @GlassHospital on @NPRHealth and see what you think. Or, just click on the amazing art from Katherine Streeter:
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Thanks Dr. S for this thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. If smart doctors like you remain uncertain (about the new guidelines, for example), how can mere patients sort all of it out?
Those new guidelines – after decades of training patients that we need to pay attention to lipid numbers – now seem to advise: ‘Forget about treating to numbers!’ But the controversial risk calculator accompanying the guidelines seems even more confusing, ensuring that having a measurable pulse will likely qualify you for starting statin therapy.
There ARE other cardiovascular disease risk calculators that likely do a better job, such as this one from James McCormack at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia: http://bestsciencemedicine.com/chd/calc2.html or this statin/aspirin decision aid from Mayo Clinic: http://statindecisionaid.mayoclinic.org/index.php/statin/index
What’s your opinion on these alternatives?
regards,
C
I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol I was put on six different medicines and found a pamphlet over there on am@zon How I beat High Blood Pressure without Prescription Meds It was written by C D James. The tips in that book got my blood pressure down to 129/79 and my cholesterol way down. I’m not on any meds now. So get your BP and Cholesterol checked and get that book. It helped me