Media personalities, are they the voice of reason?
First let me say that I was a former user of Lipitor. I stopped taking Lipitor, which I had been on for over 4 years, because I noticed that I was experiencing "brain fog" symptoms that made it hard to concentrate. I go to the gym at least 4 times a week and Lipitor was the only medication that I was taking. After reading some information from others who were also experiencing similar problems I decided, along with my physician, to stop taking the medication. I feel better but from what I have read on it takes at least 4-6 weeks to get back to "normal".
Is there a link between statin use and memory loss? Well here is what family physician and astronaut Dr Graveline has to say;
In my books, Lipitor, Thief of Memory and Statin Drugs Side Effect and on my website, spacedoc.net, I repeated have talked of the cognitive side effects of Lipitor and all statins. This effect is not rare. It is not only common but inevitable. Muldoon says 100% of statin users have cognitive dysfunction if one uses sensitive enough testing. The reason is that our sole source of brain cholesterol so vital to memory function, is from our glial cells. The effect of all our statins on the hippocampal glial cells is quite predictable - inhibition. Need I say more? Some 40% of my 6500 reports from statin victims are cognitive in nature.
So here is the issue: baby boomers are aging and at a point in their lives when they will come to depend more and more on prescription drugs to maintain their lifestyles. However as they get older they will also experience normal parts of aging such as increased aches and pains, memory lapses, getting tired easily. So the question then becomes are these in fact the normal experiences of getting older or do people want to attribute them to use of their prescription drugs? As people research answers to their aches and pains on the Web they will begin to self diagnose and may decide to stop mediation which could be very dangerous, or are there serious side effects from long term use of some prescription drugs that we don't know about?
This is where the FDA and pharma needs to step up and provide transparent information, and warnings, to patients and physicians. We have the right to look at the benefits of a medication and make trade-offs with the side effects of long term use. I heard a similar story when I talked to some people who are also trying to decide it prescription drugs are worth the side effects. Bill Maher recently said on "Real Time" that prescription drugs are poison and read off a list of side effects from popular drugs that are advertised on TV. His point was that when the body reacts this way to prescription drugs it is telling you that these drugs are not good and toxic to the body. While this is an extreme point of view more and more people may decide to discontinue the use of prescription drugs without working with their physician to maintain their health. This is dangerous but when we can't trust what pharma is telling us anymore and physicians are in the back pockets of pharma where are patients supposed to turn? This is another potential casualty of pharma's pursuit of profits at all costs.