Cardiovascular disease is the
biggest single killer of Australians. Its cost in human terms is
hard to quantify, but even harder to define are the economic costs.
In the interests of promoting better health, the Heart Foundation
has commissioned research into the economics of heart disease. And
today Access Economics has come up with a bottom line figure of
$14.2 billion dollars annually.
The Sydney Morning Herald, May 3rd
2005, stated that one in six Australians suffered from cardiovascular
disease, costing the economy $14.2 billion a year, or 1.7 per cent of
gross domestic product. and that this would jump to 1 in four by 2051.
So what is the answer?
Is it drugs?
We don't think so. There are
many other aspects to be considered, not the least being dietary
changes, exercise and stress relief!
Look at these interesting aspects:
According to recent Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme data, 14,307,008 prescriptions for
statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) were supplied between July 2003
and June 2004, for a total cost of $808,235,439.
This makes statins the second most used group of medicines in Australia
approximately 1.2 million people taking them.
However there are some well
documented problems with these drugs.
The problem with the artificial statin drugs has been identified. These
drugs concurrently reduce circulating levels of ubiquinone, aka
coenzyme Q10 and raise levels of the lipid Lp(a). A decline in CoQ10 --
attributed to artificial statins -- has been linked to muscle pain,
muscle myopathy and congestive heart failure; elevated Lp(a) is linked
to the 70 percent higher probability of heart attack or stroke.
Memory loss is also a well known side effect of taking these drugs.
So what else can be done? Look at this:
Vitamin C at the
proper dosage (6000 mg or higher), lowers Lp(a) and promotes the
natural production of CoQ10.
Linus Pauling (twice
Nobel Prize winner) informed the world that vitamin C deficiency is
the root cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and that taking more
of the vitamin lowers cholesterol, and that when combined with
lysine, effects the cure for CVD.
Yet, rather than
promote vitamin C, drug companies invented statin drugs. While it's
true that vitamin C is the top selling nutritional supplement,
earning its makers roughly $180 million per year, the statin drugs
are sold to 25 million people worldwide, earning more than $20,000
million dollars (20 billion) annually.
One wonders, what did
the drug companies know, and when did they know it? Was vitamin C
used as the model for the statin drugs, and they simply forgot to
mention it?
And one wonders also whether
cholesterol is a problem anyway when the following study shows:
*A study of elderly French
women living in a nursing home showed that those with the highest
cholesterol levels lived the longest (The Lancet, 4/22/89). The
death rate was more than five times higher for women with very low
cholesterol. Several other studies have shown similar results.
Ironically, Dr. Ravnskov noted that in his practice it was usually
the elderly women who were most worried about their cholesterol
levels.
For more information and a deeper
look into the situation with statin drugs the following website is a
great source of information -
click here.
