Posts Tagged ‘tricor’

Type 2 diabetes treatments for both cholesterol and high blood pressure fail to save lives.

Diabetes Type 2 Treatment

Key results from a landmark federal study shows that adding drugs to drive blood pressure and blood-fats lower than current targets, does not prevent heart problems, and in some cases causes harmful side effects.

Study

The study involved people with Type 2 diabetes. Diabetics have more than double the risk of being a heart attack or stoke statistic. Researches led by Columbia University’s Dr. Henry Ginsburg studied more than 5,500 diabetics who also had another health risk, such as high blood pressure or cholesterol.

All were given statin-cholesterol-lowering pills sold as Lipitor and Zocor. Half were also given Abbott Laboratories’ TriCor, and the rest got placebos. TriCor is a drug that lowers fats called triglycerides while boosting “good” cholesterol. People with very high blood fats seemed to have some benefit from TriCor.

Women taking TriCor appeared to have a higher chance to have heart problems compared to the women taking the placebo.

The blood-pressure part of the study was led by Dr. William Cushman, preventive medicine chief at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee. About 4,700 diabetics were treated with different medicines to keep their systolic blood pressure-the top number-either below 140 or below 120.

The intense treatment did not reduce the number of heart attacks, although it prevented more strokes, a less common problem. Side effects were greater with the intense treatment.

North Chicago, Illinois-based Abbott makes TriCor and a newer version, Trilipix. The drugs had more than $1.3 billion in U.S. sales last year.

The Natural Way

There are natural ways to combat type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Natural healing is an underutilized intervention. It is both potent and convenient.

The optimal defense is a lifestyle makeover. Lifestyle changes are unmatched and have the potential to turn around chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes. This is a modality that physicians have not tapped into. This has the ability to prevent drug induced serious conditions. The pharmaceutical companies are still looking for a little green pill, the color of a dollar bill.

Treatment effectiveness is the one topic that is the least discussed in America.

Treatments Depend On Tests  

Today, more than anytime in history treatment depends on diagnostic tests. That alone is very troubling. Medical checkups are sometimes more then just a history, physical, and blood tests.

President’s Obama’s first medical checkup since he took office is a good example. His Navy doctors ordered CT scans, which are rapid x-rays, of Obama’s coronary arteries and colon.

San Francisco cardiologist Rita Redberg, editor of the Archives of Internal Medicine, said she is troubled by the amount of tests. Coronary CT scans, which detect calcium deposits in the arteries and virtual colonoscopies, because they aren’t recommended for men of Obama’s age and medical history. Both of these tests boost a person’s lifetime risk of cancer.

“Mr. Obama appears to have been administered two cutting-edge, expensive diagnostic tests that exposed him to a radiation risk while providing no benefit to his care.” Redberg wrote in an editorial

“It’s low-hanging fruit to rid our system of procedures and tests that we’re spending a lot of money on that are actually making people worst,” Redberg said.

“Multiplied many times over,” she said cases like Obama’s burden us with “huge Costs” and puts patients in harm’s way.

The Truth About Treatments  

A study of about 800 patients with high blood pressure from clogged kidney arteries, found that propping arteries open with stents didn’t lower blood pressure and raised patients’ risk of side effects, including deaths.

A $300 million study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, found that patients with type 2 diabetes who take the billion-dollar Abbott drug called Tricor don’t live any longer than patients who don’t. Doctors have been prescribing Tricor since the mid-’70s; Abbott is now advertising a newer, more expensive, patent-protected version called Trilipix. A second arm of the study showed that pushing blood pressure below the usual floor in diabetic patients not only failed to help them but also raised their risk of premature death.

A 9,000-patient study sponsored by Novartis, found that the drug valsartan, sold as Diovan, kept 14% of diabetes-prone people who were given the drug from developing diabetes. But neither valsartan nor nateglinide, sold as Starlix, prevented the heart attacks, strokes or other cardiovascular events that make diabetes so devastating.

Over Treatment

Over treatment occurs because of the reliance on medicine. The reliance should be on lifestyle issues, instead of medication. This is the age of innovative strategies that combat disease. The problem is that there is very little understanding of disease. Conventional medicine makes the mistake of fighting a disease without taking away the contributing causes.

Medicine is not personalized or individualize when doctor’s give out prescriptions. What is effective in one person may be over treatment in another. Timing of  medication and amount is not always the focus of research.

There is critical risks associated with CT scans in an at risk population. What one person can handle in radiation exposure another can’t. How much is too much, no one knows for sure

Medicine is always in a constant battle with battle with your body. Health is found in unmatched ways when working with the body’s rhythm, and its ability to heal. What if you made to be incredible forever, then you would look to ingest only what feeds, and nourishes your body.