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Statins: The Magic Bullet that Missed

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BY PETER MOORE, editor of Men’s Health and co-author of The Lean Belly Prescription

BIG NEWSFLASH out from the Centers for Disease Control this morning: 25% of U.S. adults over the age of 45 are on statins, the cholesterol lowering meds. That’s up from 2% in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Clearly, if you bought pharmaceutical stock back then, this is news to celebrate and be thankful for.

But for us health editors, it’s just another symptom of what really ails Americans: Our passionate desire to grab easy answers and swallow imaginary “solutions.”

When statins were first introduced 30 years ago, they were considered something of a magic bullet. Cholesterol was then considered the big problem, and the drugs magically lowered them. Just pop one a day, and watch the numbers change in your favor, no difficult diet changes or arduous exercise required. Lipitor graced more and more medicine cabinets across the land, and boomers consoled themselves that the heart attack that got grampa would sidestep them. And yes, lately heart disease is claiming fewer lives. The death rate has plunged 27%, according to data published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

But don’t schedule a parade for those statin manufacturers just yet.

In fact, the rise in awareness of heart disease has inspired people to make a lot of important lifestyle changes, primary among them: Quitting smoking. And statins aside, the treatment options for people with heart problems have vastly improved. Barely into my 40s myself, I benefited from a rapid diagnosis and treatment for a heart blockage after I experienced chest pain on a long bicycle ride. (My epidemiologist mother-in-law told me I was lucky I was on the ultimate diagnostic tool—an exercise machine—so I felt the symptoms before it was too late.) Since then, I have been on statins myself, and along with an HDL-boosting drug called Niaspan, I’ve been able to flip my cholesterol numbers, so my so-called good cholesterol is actually higher than the bad stuff.

Hooray for me. So why am I saying that we’re over-prescribing statins? That’s easy: The drugs’ most impressive proven effect is on people who have already experienced a heart attack or other nasty heart symptom. I’m in an exclusive club: The Chest Clutchers. If you’re not, you probably shouldn’t be on statins.

In fact, statins are a often a kind of dismissive reaction to worries about heart disease and, ultimately, fears of death. An aging boomer hears how bad this cholesterol stuff is, so he goes to see a doctor. He tunes out while the doc talks about lifestyle changes, and in fact, the doc himself is probably tuning out at the same time. He doesn’t believe you can make any significant changes, so he does what’s easiest for him and for you: He writes a prescription.

What happens next is actually kind of comical, in a sick-joke way. For so many people who go on statins, their cholesterol numbers do in fact plunge. When people see their numbers improving, they thank the Big Pharma gods for helping them dodge death, so they remain rooted front of the TV screen for hours a time, snacking without conscience, sitting without remorse. If they’re like Bill Clinton, they may watch those cholesterol numbers decline, think they’re in the clear, and revert to old, unhealthy habits. And look where that landedhim.

There’s no way around it: The only way to live healthfully is to actually adopt good health habits. We need to move more, eat less. And that doesn’t mean we have to suffer through life. It just means we have to be attentive to the joys of increasing activity, of the foods that do us favors, not harm.

Which brings me to a striking coincidence in the CDC numbers. Another report released yesterday shows that 25% of U.S. adults—yup, the same percentage who are on statins—get no physical exercise at all. The residents of the “gravy belt”—Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee—are pushing a slothful 30%.

Big surprise: that’s where diabetes rates are soaring, as well.

Statins aren’t the answer, any more than denial is. The illusion of “healthy living through drugs” ends with the reality of early debilitation, amputation, or death due to inactivity. The CDC numbers aren’t a recommendation for statins, they’re an indictment of them.

The good news: Getting off your butt means longer life, and a better life to lead. The best part: You don’t even need a prescription. Just the will to stand up.

Like, right now.


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