EAT PLANTS

“We've all seen the drug ads, like this one touting atorvastatin, Lipitor, as reducing the risk of a heart attack by about a third. That means in a large clinical study, three percent of patients taking a sugar pill had a heart attack compared to two percent of patients taking Lipitor. Going from three to two is indeed a drop by a third in relative risk, but the drop in absolute risk was only one percent, which sounds less impressive.”

“Statins increase our risk of diabetes, these drugs might give as many people diabetes as it does prevent them from having a heart attack or stroke. But the stat they cite is from a combination of primary and secondary prevention trials. In primary prevention trials, like trying to prevent your first heart attack, there is no increased diabetes risk. You only see that in secondary prevention trials, where people are trying to prevent their second heart attack, for instance. Intensive dose statin therapy is associated with a greater increased risk of new onset diabetes compared to moderate dose statin therapy.”

“So why not just put cholesterol lowering drugs like statins in the drinking water like we do fluoride? Why aren't statins prescribed for everyone? Because of the downsides. There's the risk of side effects, plus the burden of having to take a pill every day for the rest of your life. So that's why these drugs are only recommended for people at relatively high risk of having a heart attack, for whom the pros of cholesterol lowering outweigh the cons of taking the drug.”

“Ultra-processed plant foods can have nearly 100 times more of these toxins than minimally processed plant foods.”

“What if, when it comes to nutrition and health, it's not so much the food or the nutrients as much as the level of processing?”

“Even in the studies where people were presented with an idealized tablet with no side effects, more than a third stated that they would not consider taking a medication that would drop their five year absolute risk by five percent or more. Only about fifty percent of people would consider taking preventive medications that prolong their life by less than eight months. The average expected longevity benefit from statins ranges from a few months to a few years depending on risk.”

“Those more recent targets may actually be closer to normal for the human species. Even after we learned to use tools so we could hunt, normal LDL has been in the 50 to 70 range, but today the average in the Western world is more like 120. No wonder heart disease is our leading cause of death in men and women.”

“Physicians were presented with the case of a man with a seven to ten percent risk of dying from cardiovascular disease over the next decade, who explicitly told the doctor that they only want to take a statin if it would increase their lifespan by a certain amount. Some doctors were told the patient demanded at least eight years of life, and others were told the patient only asked for a matter of months, which is actually what they'd gain in real life. Yet eighty three percent of doctors said they'd prescribe it to the patients who unrealistically demanded eight years, which is almost exactly the same percentage recommended by the doctors who were told the patient only wanted a few months. In other words, the doctors were insensitive to patient preferences regarding survival gain.”

“But whether or not the overall benefit and harm balance justifies the use of medication for an individual patient cannot be determined by a guidelines committee, a health care system, or even the attending physician. Instead, it is the individual patient who has a fundamental right to decide whether or not to take a drug is worthwhile. It's your body, your choice, so let's go through the pros and cons, so you can decide for yourself.”

“The FDA didn't ban it until 25 years after the first solid evidence that it increased the risk of heart disease. And meanwhile, every single one of those years, trans fats were killing an estimated 50,000 Americans a year.”