Believe it or not, drug companies and some mainstream docs are cooking up a scheme that could put millions of kids on dangerous cholesterol drugs.
Kids on cholesterol drugs? I never thought I'd live to see the day. But according to an AP report this morning, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that children as young as 8 years old be put on cholesterol-lowering drugs in order to prevent heart problems in the future.
If this isn't a racket to make more money, I don't know what is. I find it mighty suspicious that this new recommendation came on the heels of several of these drugs getting approved for use in children. Now, suddenly they want kids to get screened as early as 2 years old. What's next — giving the drugs in vitro?
Dr. Stephen Daniels is on the AAP's nutrition committee ("Nutrition committee?" What a joke!). He said that this recommendation is "based on mounting evidence showing that damage leading to heart disease, the nation's leading killer, begins early in life." He went on to say that "recent research shows that cholesterol-fighting drugs are generally safe for children."
"Generally safe?" How can that be? They're not even safe for adults! Side effects include memory loss, cancer, and congestive heart failure!
I wasn't the least bit surprised to learn that Daniels is affiliated with Abbott Laboratories and Merck & Co., two big time pharmaceutical companies with cholesterol drugs. Of course, he was careful to state that he wasn't involved with the companies' statins, but what difference does it make? The bottom line is the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned.
As you might expect, most of the kids that are considered "at risk" are overweight, but rather than teaching them how to live a healthy lifestyle, their doctors prefer to throw drugs at them. Just another quick fix everyone seems to love so much. But here's what gets me:
Kids on cholesterol drugs? I never thought I'd live to see the day. But according to an AP report this morning, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that children as young as 8 years old be put on cholesterol-lowering drugs in order to prevent heart problems in the future.
If this isn't a racket to make more money, I don't know what is. I find it mighty suspicious that this new recommendation came on the heels of several of these drugs getting approved for use in children. Now, suddenly they want kids to get screened as early as 2 years old. What's next — giving the drugs in vitro?
Dr. Stephen Daniels is on the AAP's nutrition committee ("Nutrition committee?" What a joke!). He said that this recommendation is "based on mounting evidence showing that damage leading to heart disease, the nation's leading killer, begins early in life." He went on to say that "recent research shows that cholesterol-fighting drugs are generally safe for children."
"Generally safe?" How can that be? They're not even safe for adults! Side effects include memory loss, cancer, and congestive heart failure!
I wasn't the least bit surprised to learn that Daniels is affiliated with Abbott Laboratories and Merck & Co., two big time pharmaceutical companies with cholesterol drugs. Of course, he was careful to state that he wasn't involved with the companies' statins, but what difference does it make? The bottom line is the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned.
As you might expect, most of the kids that are considered "at risk" are overweight, but rather than teaching them how to live a healthy lifestyle, their doctors prefer to throw drugs at them. Just another quick fix everyone seems to love so much. But here's what gets me:
- There's not much data on kids using these drugs
- There's no evidence that putting a child on statins will prevent a heart attack when he gets older
- No one is saying how long the children will have to stay on the drugs
The icing on this cholesterol cake is that you shouldn't even be lowering your cholesterol to begin with. In fact, I would panic if my cholesterol dropped below 200. Latest studies show that cholesterol levels of over 200 could actually lower your cancer risk and slash your risk of stroke.
Do me a favor and pass this along to anyone who has young children. They need to know to skip the screenings, and by all means, to turn their noses up at the even the THOUGHT of putting their children on a statin drug. I'm not kidding when I say that the future health and happiness of these children depends on it.
Do me a favor and pass this along to anyone who has young children. They need to know to skip the screenings, and by all means, to turn their noses up at the even the THOUGHT of putting their children on a statin drug. I'm not kidding when I say that the future health and happiness of these children depends on it.
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Unfortunately, stories like this one only highlight what I've been telling you all along: Blood pressure doesn't cause heart disease, high cholesterol drugs aren't cure-alls, and exercise can do more harm than good. In short, none of the steps his doctors told him to take to address his health concerns were doing a darn bit of good.
Instead, if someone had told him to focus on keeping his homocysteine levels low and his magnesium levels high, we might not be having this conversation in the first place. Homocysteine makes cholesterol stick to your artery walls and can also contribute the hardening of your arteries. It's simple to control your cholesterol levels by loading up on B vitamins, like B6, B12 and folate.
Magnesium also has vital heart-healthy benefits.
"Statins don't protect against heart attacks. And [he] didn't know that the lack of one nutrient could have cost him his life," said acclaimed neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock. "The number-one cause of sudden cardiac death is magnesium deficiency. Cardiac patients and those with diabetes have the lowest magnesium levels of all."
I've written to you before about the many benefits of magnesium. This mineral prevents blood clots, dilates blood vessels, and can also stop the development of dangerous heart irregularities. It's why I've been such a long-time advocate of increasing magnesium intake for its heart-health benefits – not to mention what it does for your bones and bodily tissues. I've even used magnesium in emergency medicine to help limit brain damage in stroke victims. And yet more than half of Americans have a magnesium deficiency.
"People who are deficient in magnesium are most likely to have sudden cardiac arrest, and when they do arrest, they are harder to resuscitate," Blaylock says. "Many simply can't be resuscitated."
Dr. Samuel Belkin, surgeon in chief of New York's Montefiore Medical Center, did a good job of summing up just why the death of the beloved newsman has so shaken both Americans in general and doctors in particular: "It makes us all feel mortal, and it also highlights the natural history of this silent killer and our limited ability to catch this killer before it strikes."
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