Statins again

So, because statin's were very fascinating to me, I decided to see if, other than lowering cholesterol, there are additional benefits of taking these prescription drugs that have very adverse side effects including mortality.

In a test run of elder patients ages 65 and up with past record of heart failure, statins actually improved mortality. The statistics of the experiments are the following:


Experiment 1: 61,939 elder patients that were hospitalized with heart failure
Testing was done on patients that had never received statins, limiting the number of test subjects to 54,960.
Of the patients, 16.7% received statins upon release from the hospital.
The patients that received the statins upon discharge had an increase in life by 1 to 3 years compared to the unexposed subjects.

Experiment 2: 1153 patients described as having severe heart failure
Statin therapy was given to 12% of the patients [134 patients]
After 16 months, there were 413 deaths.
Statin therapy resulted in having a 62% lower risk of death.


What does this mean? Well it simply means that statin [cholesterol lowering drugs] can help to lower mortality in patients that have had a history of heart failure. However, the evidence is not concrete, and therefore, do not shove Lipitor or Prilosec down your grandparents throats if they have had a heart attack. There is still plenty of research being down on statin's and the many side effects of these powerful drugs. Keep your eyes open to the labels on the prescription bottles if you choose to take statins, and make sure you do your own research, because statin's can have different effects depending on what condition you may or may not have. Hopefully, you do not need to take statin's, but when the time comes, just make sure you read into them. Until that day, keep enjoying those greasy high cholesterol foods, just avoid creating heart failure.

Is the price too much to pay?

The most commonly used prescription drugs on the market are antidepressants. In America, approximately 5% of males and 11% of females are taking antidepressants to treat their depression and eliminate suicidal thoughts.

Some commonly used antidepressant medications including Prozac

When taking any prescription drugs, a side effect commonly listed is weight gain. This is extremely prominent in antidepressants. The drug mianserin is contained in all antidepressants and has been proven to significantly increase appetite and body mass in users. This leads to more unwanted fat in the body, which can result in obesity, and thus lower the life expectancy. Although there is a definite reduction in life expectancy, the actual amount of time has yet to be determined.

That being said, depression is a serious problem and needs to be treated. Taking antidepressants to alleviate the suicidal thoughts and depression must be done, but it comes down to what is more important: feeling better about yourself and losing a few years of life, or being sad and depressed all the time and living a few years longer.

Prescription Drug Abuse

This week, I was browsing the wonderful world of Facebook and I came across a kid that I went to high school with. He had just gotten back from rehab. It hit me really hard to know that someone that I actually knew had used drugs so much that he had to go to rehab because I only hear about that in the tabloids. That got me thinking about how prescription drug abuse is a major cause of death and adverse side effects.

Annually, there are approximately 9 million people that are using prescription drugs for non-medical purposes. Between 1995 and 2002, the percent increase of emergency-room visits tied to abuse of prescription drugs was 163%.

Use of prescription drugs for non-medical purposes in 1999

Use of prescription drugs for non-medical purposes in 2003.

The bottom graph just goes to show that the use of prescription drugs for non-medical purposes is increasing as time goes on.

 Quick fact: legal drugs are responsible for the most deaths attributed to drugs. More than cocaine, heroine, and all other combinations of illegal drugs.

Well how does this relate to aging? Well, if you just take a brief moment to think about how you can die if you overdose of prescription drugs, then you will realize that there is no aging process. The fact is: if you die of overdosing from any kind of drug, there is no way to determine the effects of your body later in life, because you will not have a later life.

The Beers List

The Beers list could contain the following: Heineken, Coors, Miller Light, and even Budweiser. However, the Beers list that I would much rather focus on looks more like Hyoscyamine,
Clonidine, Oxybutynin, with a little hint of Metaclopramide.

The Beers Criteria is a list of approximately 30 drugs that would be inappropriate to prescribe to elderly people. The reason that drugs can be inappropriate for elders and not for younger generations is that as you age, the body undergoes physiological changes, The drugs defined within the Beers Criteria have very negative side effects when the body has undergone these changes. Some of the side effects are: evidence of cancer, toxic effects, rashes, and liver damage. However, these side effects only occur during old age, and the drugs contained within the Beers list are perfectly suitable for healthy young individuals. 

According to a study done in 2007, it was discovered that 27% of seniors took some kind of Beers List drugs during 2005-2006. Although this is improvement from the 34% of users in 2000-2001, it is still an unsafe percentage. Doctors and physicians are trying to spread the word about the Beers list and how dangerous its contents can be. So if you have elderly parents, make sure to double check that they are not taking any of the inappropriate drugs.

The bright side

Although I have spent the majority of my time discussing the negative effects of drugs, there must be some positive effects of drugs, right? Or else nobody would take the time or money to use drugs.

Comparison between a normal brain and an Alzheimer's effected brain

Alzheimer's disease has been known to take the minds of loved ones during old age. This disease is a progressive and fatal brain disease that destroys brain cells and has no cure.  This is a very devastating disease and some research done by the Neurobiology of Aging came across some good news.

The onset of Alzheimer's disease can be delayed by the use of histamine H2 blocking drugs. This was a little too much information for me when I first read about it, so I decided to investigate a little further and find out common reasons for the use of H2 blocking drugs. What I discovered was that H2 blockers are used to prevent acid build up in the stomach and also used to treat ulcers in the stomach. How does something that controls stomach acid prevent dementia? I could not find a solid answer. However I gathered some numbers and percentages that are fairly shocking.

It is estimated that 10% of the developed world population will be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease between the ages of 65 and 90. That means that if or when I finally have ten followers on my blog, one of my followers will most likely be diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease later in life.

Also, there was a study done by Duke University that determined the effects of H2 blocking agents. In a population of 156 people, 21 were exposed to H2 blockers and 135 were not exposed. After more than one month of exposure the examinations begun.
The result: there was a 10 year difference in side effects of those exposed to h2 blocker. Simpler terms: the H2 blockers delayed the effects of Alzheimer's 10 years.

Some common H2 blockers

I found this interesting. So next time you have a nice greasy piece of pizza, make sure to ask your Pharmacist for some H2 blocking drugs. This way you can control the acid and delay Alzheimer's disease all in one.



http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5643960.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8544901
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0F-3TDHRHD-78&_user=10&_coverDate=11%2F12%2F1997&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1510875553&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=331d055bf2ee3b46ef217e1ac0e28601&searchtype=a
http://www.neurobiologyofaging.org/article/0197-4580%2895%2900049-K/abstract

HMG-CoA what?

Real quick: Aging is due to the loss of homeostasis, which leads to a change in the biochemical composition of tissues. Aging also increases the susceptibility of diseases. One "disease" that is very common in the older population is high cholesterol.

The role of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors.

High cholesterol is treated by HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. That is a really long name; what does that even mean? HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors are the more scientific name for Statins.

Well cholesterol is a white substance that has potential to stick to the inside of blood vessels, causing a build up and could result in a heart diseases or a stroke. The HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors work to slow down the production of cholesterol particles. How could something that prevents high cholesterol be a bad thing?

As previously discussed, the average person over the age of 55 is taking a minimum of 6.5 medications a day. This comes into play when one of the drugs being taken is a statin. Statins have many side effects like the typical nausea, headache, vomiting, and so on, but the two most serious side effects of statins are liver failure and rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdo-what? Rhabdomyolysis is a side effect that results in damage to muscles and can progress to loss of muscle cells, kidney failure, and even death. Rhabdomyolysis is most commonly seen in patients that are on numerous drugs along with their statin.


That being said, this all relates back to how taking numerous prescription drugs can be very harmful.


If this interests you, check out either medicinenet.com or the Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research within the Hindawi Research Corporation.

Oh, those Statins!

There are two types of cholesterol: the kind you get from your cousin Kenny and the kind you get from that delicious crispy chicken. We have all heard this commercial numerous times.

The point behind this though is that high cholesterol is something that needs to be fixed, whether it is dietary cholesterol or blood cholesterol [also known as serum cholesterol].

The solution: statins.

To be honest, I did not know that the term to describe cholesterol lowering drugs was called a statin, but after doing some research, I discovered an A+ vocabulary word. Some common statins are Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor.

Why am I ranting on about statins? Well, there have been numerous reports about adverse side effects to these drugs. Paul Rhoades, 57, was on statins to lower cholesterol. While taking statins, Paul started to experience memory loss, muscle weakness, and most importantly, he became dependent on a wheelchair. So what?

Well, many studies have been done and the results are shocking. One study concluded the following risk "Risks: Statin drugs can memory loss, depression, sleep disturbance, sexual dysfunction and a rare lung disease."

Another headline that I came across was something along the lines of: Statins: Risk of stroke and total mortality.

I will never take any drugs that have side effects of death, but that it just me.

I am planning on looking into the research of statins more in depth and I will report back to my blog when I find new information.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1262130/Statins-Doctors-fear-effects-devastating.html#ixzz10EK7labc

My goal this week is to become more informed about harmful things, and since I used to be an avid Lipitor user, I think it is crucial to let others know about the risks they are taking.

Next week, I want to investigate why the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme has such an awful effect. 

For now, don't stop enjoying your crispy chicken.

My first discovery

Well I used some common knowledge to create the statement: as you age, you increase the amount of prescription drugs you use. Whether this was true or not, I was not sure but after furthering my research, I did in fact discover that on average, older people take an average of four to five prescription drugs a day along with an average of two daily over the counter drugs. A lot? I thought so. And then I thought about my grandma whom has arthritis, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. It occurred to me at that point that is it indeed realistic to be on multiple prescriptions at once. That being said, I decided to see if any research has been done to see if taking multiple drugs has any effect on aging.
What I discovered:
Many drugs that are being taken by the elderly are preventative drugs, although there are an occasional few drugs that are prescribed to treat the usual constipation or infection. However, a new fact to me is that elder people are more that twice as likely to experience side effects of drugs than younger people are. This is due to primarily two reasons: the amount of water in your body, and the changes that your kidney experience. Water, what does water have to do with experiencing side effects? Well, the water in your body is responsible for dissolving some drugs, and if the amount of water decreases, then the drug takes longer to dissolve. This may cause problems because multiple drugs may be trying to dissolve at once and have a reaction, which would cause a side effect. The second reason that more side effects are experienced in older folks is that the kidneys and livers slow down. Just like a marathoner collapses after racing those long hard 26 point something miles, our kidneys and liver try and collapse and not work properly towards the end of our race of life. What is the relevance of this? Well, the liver is in charge of metabolizing drugs and prepares them for their departure from our body via our kidneys, and as you age, the liver becomes less susceptible to alter drugs, and when that happens, our weak kidneys have trouble eliminating the drugs from our system.

That being said, as we age, our body has trouble completely eradicating drugs from our body. The build up of drug remains can create problems and alter the lifespan of the elderly. I will get more into that next time, but for the time being, I must say goodnight because I have a 10K test tomorrow and although I may not be a marathoner, I still do not want to collapse when I finish.