Statin Lowers Mortality

This forum will focus on analyzing recent clinical studies of vitamin C.

Moderator: ofonorow

ofonorow
Ascorbate Wizard
Ascorbate Wizard
Posts: 15822
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2005 3:16 pm
Location: Lisle, IL
Contact:

Statin Lowers Mortality

Post Number:#1  Post by ofonorow » Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:54 am

This is the second study godsilove has listed as supporting the notion that statin drugs decrease mortality. I am trying to find the full-text...

Am J Cardiol. 2009 Feb 1;103(3):381-6. Epub 2008 Nov 21.
Ten-year all-cause mortality in presumably healthy subjects on lipid-lowering drugs (from the Prospective Epidemiological Study of Myocardial Infarction [PRIME] prospective cohort).
ABSTRACT
Lipid-lowering drugs are one of the most prescribed drugs worldwide. The aim was to compare 10-year all-cause mortality according to initial dyslipidemia status and lipid-lowering drug exposure. The PRIME study was a multicenter population-based prospective cohort study of men recruited in 1991 to 1993, aged 50 to 59 years at baseline, and followed up for 10 years. The 4 groups compared were normolipidemic, untreated dyslipidemic, and dyslipidemic subjects on fibrate or statin therapy. Data were analyzed using multivariate Cox models. The cohort included 7,722 French men (statin group 4.0%, fibrate group 7.9%, untreated dyslipidemic subjects 19.0%, and normolipidemic subjects 69.1%). After 10 years, 4.8% of the sample was lost to follow-up and 416 deaths occurred (cancers 53.1%, cardiovascular diseases 17.1%, and other 29.8%). After adjustment for center, age, educational level, cardiovascular risk factors, lipids, alcohol intake, and history of cardiovascular and severe chronic diseases, hazard ratios (HRs) for all-cause mortality were 0.49 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.26 to 0.94, p = 0.031) for subjects treated with a statin, 0.65 (95% CI 0.42 to 0.99, p = 0.046) for those on fibrate therapy, and 0.76 (95% CI 0.56 to 1.03, p = 0.080) for normolipidemic men compared with untreated dyslipidemic subjects. In the statin group, HRs for death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other causes were 0.55 (p = 0.348), 0.41 (p = 0.067), and 0.68 (p = 0.546) compared with dyslipidemic subjects, respectively. In the fibrate group, HRs were 0.76 (p = 0.499), 0.52 (p = 0.041), and 0.87 (p = 0.746). In conclusion, in this cohort study carried out in a real-life setting, all-cause mortality was significantly lower in dyslipidemic subjects on fibrate or statin therapy than in untreated dyslipidemic patients. No excess risk of noncardiovascular death was observed.


Even without the full text, what stands out is that only 4% of the study population were on statins, which if my math is correct, means 309 out of the 7722. What is disingenuous about this presentation is the idea that the results supporting statins was conducted in a cohort of many thousands, when in fact, the cohort was several hundred.

And what does "After adjustment for center, age, educational level, cardiovascular risk factors, lipids, alcohol intake, and history of cardiovascular and severe chronic diseases, hazard ratios (HRs) for all-cause mortality were..." mean? I for one want to know what the numbers were before these adjustments.

If you take these results at face value, then men on statins (presumably with high cholesterol without the statin) fare much better than healthy men with normal cholesterol. I simply do not believe it.
Owen R. Fonorow
HeartCURE.Info
American Scientist's Invention Could Prevent 350,000 Heart Bypass Operations a year

Return to “Clinical Studies”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 28 guests