Link between statins and diabetes confirmed by the feds

Link between statins and diabetes confirmed by the feds

If you're taking statins because you believe picture-perfect cholesterol levels will help keep disease at bay, I've got some bad news for you.

After years of pushing these drugs as the answer to just about everything, the feds now admit they were wrong... because statins can actually CAUSE diabetes.

WHOOPS!

We're not talking about a tiny risk here, either. One expert crunched the numbers in The New York Times and concluded that 100,000 Americans currently taking statins will get diabetes BECAUSE OF the very drugs that were supposed to "save" them.

But let's look at the other side of the coin here. Most of the companies that make statins also make meds for diabetes and its related conditions. For them, 100,000 new diabetics isn't a terrible side effect -- heck, it's a business model!

I bet someone got a promotion for that one.

Of course, none of this is a surprise to regular Daily Dose readers. I've been warning you for years now that statins aren't all they're cracked up to be -- and that a higher risk of diabetes is just the tip of the iceberg.

The new FDA warning also says these meds can cause high blood sugar, memory loss, and confusion. And if that's not enough for you to decide to toss that prescription in the trash, statins have also been linked to serious muscle pain, liver problems, kidney failure, nerve damage, sexual dysfunction, vision problems, and more.

Yet despite all those risks -- and despite the fact that statins cure no disease and haven't even been proven to save lives -- these meds have become some of the best-selling drugs of all time, taken by a quarter of all adults over the age of 45.

It's nuts, because the very reason for their existence is an out-and-out fraud. If you're like most people, the only cholesterol problem you have is LOW cholesterol.

That might sound absolutely batty if you've been listening to years of mainstream advice, but the facts speak for themselves: The very blood fats you've been taught to fear are crucial to everything from heart function to brain health.

One study out of Japan a couple of years ago even found that people with HIGH cholesterol actually lived longer than those with textbook "low" levels.

And you're supposed to aim for those levels -- and take dangerous drugs to get there? No thanks!

WC Douglass MD