Comments on Emotions for Engineers: More Statin Misreporting

Thanks for gathering those sources together. Too o...

2008-11-18T12:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks for gathering those sources together. Too often the general public takes the summarized and sensationalized headlines about studies as truth without a second thought. Unfortunately, those are the same people who would see this article and dismiss it because it'd take too much time to read it.

Thanks for the kind words Christoph. It's as if th...

2008-11-17T09:16:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the kind words Christoph. It's as if there are three camps with very little overlap. There are the researchers who often have clear conflicts of interest. There are the reporters who have little knowledge of science, but rather simply spit out the conmtents of press releases. And finally, disinterested third parties who understand the nature of scientific inquiry and can write about it.

Blogging has opened up an incredible channel into the minds of the third category

New York Times did a pretty nice job on this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/opinion/17mon2.html

"...That would be a boon for some drug companies, but whether it would be good for all patients remains an open question."
Then later,
"Given that half of all heart attacks and strokes occur in people whose cholesterol is not considered high, it seems likely that there is a group of people with normal cholesterol who could benefit by taking statins. The task ahead for the writers of medical guidelines is to define just who those people might be."

Thsanks again,
e4e

Great article. I agreed with every word.The health...

2008-11-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

Great article. I agreed with every word.

The health -- and scientific -- world needs people like you, thinkers, not just technicians. Nor just businesspeople.

We need both, but neither are the right ones to put all the pieces together 9 times out of 10.

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-crp-...

2008-11-14T11:37:00.000-08:00

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-crp-be-reduced.html

This is a good link on what you can do to reduce C-Reactive protein without taking statins.

A listing of the recommendations:
--Weight loss drops CRP like a stone. The CRP-reducing effect is especially large if achieved via carbohydrate (wheat and cornstarch) reduction

--Vitamin D-- ...the effect is profound.

--Elimination of junk foods--like candies, cookies, pretzels, rice cakes, potato chips, etc.

--Exercise--Amplifies the benefits of diet on CRP reduction.

--Not allowing saturated fats to dominate

--Fish oil--...the anti-inflammatory effect is modest from a CRP perspective. However, there are anti-inflammatory benefits beyond that of simple CRP.