Statins, cholesterol and weight gain – case study

A 70 year old patient from the United Kingdom recently asked for a second opinion from another doctor after his own doctor unexpectedly prescribed statin drugs for him.

The man was apparently in good health, relatively fit for his age, and had no family history of heart disease or strokes, so he was puzzled as to why he should need to start taking statin drugs.

The second doctor looked at some of the patient’s vital health related statistics and recorded the following information :-

• Age 70
• Height 6 feet 1 inches
• weight 231 pounds
• cholesterol 4.6 mmol

What conclusions did he reach about the patient’s health ?

The second doctor agreed that the man was in good health, and had a low cholesterol reading, plus a good family health history too, with none of the primary risk factors for developing heart disease.

However he confirmed the prescription for statins issued by the first doctor due to the man being overweight.

Both doctors had calculated the man’s Body Mass Index (BMI) to be 30.5. An excessive BMI figure is generally accepted to be a fairly good indicator of potential future cardiovascular health problems linked to excess weight and body fat.

The normal reading for BMI in men is between 19 and 25, and a reading greater than 30 is classified as technically obsese. The 2nd doctor recommended that for his height, the man’s ideal weight should be 189 pounds, so he needed to lose 42 pounds !

Reason for taking statins when cholesterol level is not excessive

Most folks only associate statin drugs with one purpose – to reduce the level of bad cholesterol in the blood. However, new research published in November 2008, involving over 17,000 volunteers has shown that there are significant benefits to be obtained by taking statins by healthy people with normal cholesterol levels (under 5 mmol).

The study group was divided into 2 sub-groups – one half took a statin drug, whilst the other half were given a dummy pill (or placebo). The health of the entire group was planned to be tracked over the next four years, but the study was halted after 2 years as the results were so astonishing.

It was discovered that the group that had taken the statins suffered only half the rate of hospital admissions for heart attacks and strokes as the control group.

The study concluded that statin drugs not only regulate the amount of cholesterol in our bloodstream, but actually reduce the amount of inflammation present in the artery walls. This is a new discovery, and also raises a new question as to why arterial inflammation has more of a contributory factor to developing coronary heart disease than was previously understood.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this study was the discovery that the folks on the dummy pill exhibited similar side effects to the one’s who were taking the actual medication – which totally baffled the scientists.

So, our 70 year old patient was advised to continue to take the statin drug, but also to try and lose some weight, and take more exercise – good advice for most of the rest of us we feel.