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That is everyone's personal choice. Like you choose medicine to cure you NOW (knee infection), at what point do you think you would choose just not to get treated? Antibiotics are ok, but not statins? What is your deciding factor?
I'm genuinely curious....
Let's review the AHA risk calculator. It asks your age, race, total cholesterol, LDL and your blood pressure. It also asks if you've been treated for high blood pressure, if you have diabetes, and if you smoke. THAT'S IT.
It does not ask your height and weight (the correct weight is the #1 way to avoid heart disease), if you excercise (the #2 way), your LDL, your triglycerides, and if you have any family history.
This is an outrageously incomplete set of questions to determine if you are at risk for heart disease. Based on the calculator, EVERY 70-year-old male should be taking a medium to high dose statin. And presumably, the calculator greatly overestimates the need for statins for every age group, male and female. And this is a drug that can come with nasty side effects, both short term and long term.
The ONLY reason the patient will decide not to use a statin is because the education received from Dr. Google and Dr. YouTube. If this were 1995, every patient prescribed statins would take them because Dr. Google and Dr. YouTube did not exist. You were at the mercy of your all-knowing physician.
You totally did not read the article I linked.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubygreta
Thank you. I am well aware that no matter how much the makers of Chips Ahoy cookies tries to bribe the AHA, they will not grant the Heart Healthy seal. I'm sure they would like to, but they would be totally humiliated. I don't remember the product that was about to get the seal last year, but the blow back was so enormous the AHA had to withdraw it.
The entire concept is ridiculous. There should be ZERO payment to the AHA for the Heart Healthy label. And the notion that your heart will be healthier if you eat Chocolate Cheerios for breakfast (junk garbage) instead of nutritious eggs (cholesterol in food does not raise serum cholesterol) proves that the AHA is a complete and total joke of an organization.
Sorry, I find it hard to believe you are unable to remember the name of a product involved in such an egregious breach of AHA standards.
Where does the AHA say that "junk garbage" is better than eggs?
Do Chocolate Cheerios contain more sugar than regular Cheerios? Yes.
"The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting the amount of added sugars you consume to no more than half of your daily discretionary calories allowance. For most American women, that’s no more than 100 calories per day, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar. For men, it’s 150 calories per day, or about 9 teaspoons. The AHA recommendations focus on all added sugars, without singling out any particular types such as high-fructose corn syrup."
Why should the AHA not collect a fee for the certification process? Paying the fee is no guarantee that the product will be allowed to carry the seal. It's not a bribe.
"The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting the amount of added sugars you consume to no more than half of your daily discretionary calories allowance. For most American women, that’s no more than 100 calories per day, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar. For men, it’s 150 calories per day, or about 9 teaspoons. The AHA recommendations focus on all added sugars, without singling out any particular types such as high-fructose corn syrup."
Why should the AHA not collect a fee for the certification process? Paying the fee is no guarantee that the product will be allowed to carry the seal. It's not a bribe.
I don't see the Heart Healthy label on egg containers. Perhaps it's because there are lots of small egg companies who can't pay the fee. But the real reason is that the AHA, a dinosaur organization that is stuck in 1985, still thinks that eggs are bad for your heart. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Nobody knows what the AHA says about sugar as you cited. People walk into the grocery store, see the Healthy Heart label, and assume the food is healthy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
By the way, there's nothing particularly wrong with Cheerios (unless you're diabetic). But feeding them to your 5-year old because you think it will help him have a healthy heart is beyond ridiculous. Blame the AHA, not mom and dad.
Let's review the AHA risk calculator. It asks your age, race, total cholesterol, LDL and your blood pressure. It also asks if you've been treated for high blood pressure, if you have diabetes, and if you smoke. THAT'S IT.
It does not ask your height and weight (the correct weight is the #1 way to avoid heart disease), if you excercise (the #2 way), your LDL, your triglycerides, and if you have any family history.
This is an outrageously incomplete set of questions to determine if you are at risk for heart disease. Based on the calculator, EVERY 70-year-old male should be taking a medium to high dose statin. And presumably, the calculator greatly overestimates the need for statins for every age group, male and female. And this is a drug that can come with nasty side effects, both short term and long term.
The calculator indeed uses only those questions. That measures the risk attributable to those factors. It does not mean those are the only risk factors and that weight and activity are not important.
"Truly isolated hypertriglyceridemia is rare. To date, no good trials directly address the effect of reducing truly isolated hypertriglyceridemia on cardiovascular morbidity or mortality. High triglycerides are usually accompanied by other features of the 'metabolic syndrome' (low HDL, high LDL, insulin resistance, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity), making it almost impossible to look at these in isolation or attribute risk to a specific component."
Normal weight does not eliminate the risk of heart disease:
"A new research study has found that approximately one-third of all individuals with a normal body mass index (BMI) had cardio-metabolic risk factors for heart disease, especially those of South Asian and Hispanic descent."
Adverse effects of statins are not guaranteed, and most people do not experience them. In fact, people have a greater risk of reporting adverse effects from statins when they know they are taking them than when they do not. It's called the nocebo effect.
The calculator indeed uses only those questions. That measures the risk attributable to those factors. It does not mean those are the only risk factors and that weight and activity are not important.
"Truly isolated hypertriglyceridemia is rare. To date, no good trials directly address the effect of reducing truly isolated hypertriglyceridemia on cardiovascular morbidity or mortality. High triglycerides are usually accompanied by other features of the 'metabolic syndrome' (low HDL, high LDL, insulin resistance, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity), making it almost impossible to look at these in isolation or attribute risk to a specific component."
Normal weight does not eliminate the risk of heart disease:
"A new research study has found that approximately one-third of all individuals with a normal body mass index (BMI) had cardio-metabolic risk factors for heart disease, especially those of South Asian and Hispanic descent."
Adverse effects of statins are not guaranteed, and most people do not experience them. In fact, people have a greater risk of reporting adverse effects from statins when they know they are taking them than when they do not. It's called the nocebo effect.
Many doctors will simply default to the calculator, either through ignorance, or perhaps for fear of being sued should the patient have a heart attack.
Most patients, who are clueless, will take the statins because the doctor said to take them.
Last edited by rubygreta; 08-21-2017 at 12:50 PM..
I don't see the Heart Healthy label on egg containers. Perhaps it's because there are lots of small egg companies who can't pay the fee. But the real reason is that the AHA, a dinosaur organization that is stuck in 1985, still thinks that eggs are bad for your heart. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Nobody knows what the AHA says about sugar as you cited. People walk into the grocery store, see the Healthy Heart label, and assume the food is healthy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
By the way, there's nothing particularly wrong with Cheerios (unless you're diabetic). But feeding them to your 5-year old because you think it will help him have a healthy heart is beyond ridiculous. Blame the AHA, not mom and dad.
It seems you are the one stuck in the past. It is the nature of nutritional science for recommendations to change as more data becomes available. The AHA does not currently recommend a daily limit on cholesterol intake.
"The 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee could not find cause to state a quantitative limit on dietary cholesterol intake. Their report stated that “more research is needed regarding a dose response relationship between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol levels.” Therefore, the 2015- 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans dropped the previous recommendation to limit dietary cholesterol intake to 300 mg per day. The National Lipid Association’s (NLA) review of the scientific literature revealed only 'modest effects' of dietary cholesterol on cholesterol levels. The NLA report included information from a controlled feeding study stating that 'each 100 mg/day of dietary cholesterol raised LDL-C by an average of about 1.9 mg/dL.' Additionally 'no association between dietary cholesterol or egg consumption (a large contributor to dietary cholesterol intake) and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk in the general population' was found."
It also seems you think that Americans are savvy enough to use Google to decide not to use a statin but they are incapable of reading nutrition labels on a food. What the AHA logo on a package means is that the product meets certain standards set by the AHA.
Many doctors will simply default to the calculator, either through ignorance, or perhaps for fear of being sued should the patient have a heart attack.
Most patients, who are clueless, will take the statins because there doctor said to take them.
How do you determine that "many doctors" will do that?
Most patients who take statins do so because they believe that their doctors' education and experience trump Google.
And it seems MANY are stuck in the modern medicine technology of numbers and calculators....whatever happened to the MD's who treated symptoms. They aged and retired and died off....then the new crew came in with the modern medicine explosion. And so brainwashed by pharma.
I'm not knocking all modern med and glad they exist as they are needed to save some lives but.....
OP, could you post some bullet points summing up the video? And also tell us, please, if you know, who the speaker is?
Quote:
Originally Posted by EmilyFoxSeaton
Absolutely. Interesting that he talked about NSAIDS causing vascular damage. I hardly take them at all. Perhaps 1 or 2 per month for cramps. But my brother one time caused bleeding due to taking too many. He takes them routinely for back pain. He has extremely high blood pressure. I have low normal.
Cholesterol.. don't even get me started. I have "high" cholesterol. But I believe this is a genetic thing. I also believe that this is good for me. I believe cholesterol has zero effect on causing heart attacks.
I had cholesterol levels my whole life that could only be described as "alarmingly high", I-should-have-been-dead-yesterday high. (Except my HDL was high, too, so I actually had a healthy ratio of one to the other.) Until I found the right thyroid supplement/med. Then suddenly everything fell into place: my cholesterol, my chronically too-low blood pressure came within the normal range, my low body temp came up to normal, etc.
An in-law of mine ended up in emergency surgery due to bleeding in his brain tissues, caused by taking an NSAID/day for "heart health". I think that even if you take it a couple of times/month, it can damage your intestines (among other delicate tissues), and cause "leaky gut". I use an NSAID that has caffeine in it, for occasional headaches, but I'd like to find a way to avoid that.
And it seems MANY are stuck in the modern medicine technology of numbers and calculators....whatever happened to the MD's who treated symptoms. They aged and retired and died off....then the new crew came in with the modern medicine explosion. And so brainwashed by pharma.
I'm not knocking all modern med and glad they exist as they are needed to save some lives but.....
Nowadays they diagnose via testing, because they need that documentation in their files, in case of insurance issues or a potential complaint (malpractice). But the problem is, too often they refuse to do any testing, and tell the patient nothing is wrong, rather than listening to the patient's complaints and symptoms. I don't get it. Is that what you meant to address, OP? The tendency for doctors to brush things off, and wave patients away?
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