Do Statin Drugs Reduce Morbidity? Not according to a new study (and old studies)

I try to read Michael R. Eades, M.D. blog on a regular basis. He has an excellent blog post on a recent study that once again shows that statin drugs are not the miracle drug that the establishment says. I have included part of his  blog below and encourage everyone to sign up for it in order to read it on a regular basis.

His general conclusion is;

"As I've discussed previously, there is no evidence that statins provide any benefit in terms of decreased overall mortality to females of any age or to men over the age of 65 regardless of their state of health.  The only group that statins has shown to provide any benefit for in terms of decreases all-cause mortality (the only statistic that really counts) is men under the age of 65 who have been diagnosed with heart disease.  Even in that group, benefit is so small as to be questionable"

His blog on the specific study that reconfirms his conclusion;

Statinators spill the beans
Posted: 06 Nov 2009 03:19 PM PST

Oftentimes people become so fixed in their thinking – and in their belief that everyone else thinks the same way – that they unwittingly raise the curtain and expose the wizard of their flawed thinking, showing it for what it really is.  Statinators have done just that in an article in the current issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).

The study, Effects of High-Dose Modified-Release Nicotinic Acid on Atherosclerosis and Vascular Function, compares the increase in carotid artery plaque over a 12-month period in subjects taking niacin versus those taking a placebo.  It turns out that those subjects taking the niacin experienced a shrinkage of their plaque whereas plaque grew larger on those taking the placebo. The revealing hitch in this study is that both groups were on statins, which means the group on statins alone was the placebo group.  Therefore the data from this study shows that statins alone do not reverse the growth of plaque (at least not plaque in the carotid arteries) despite lowering LDL levels.  Taking the logic a little further, the data from this study gives weight to the idea that a lowered LDL doesn?t reduce plaque growth.