A recent ad for a cholesterol-lowering drug shows a woman jumping up and down, celebrating the fact that her blood cholesterol is lower with her new statin medication. Similar ads tout drugs to control high blood pressure or high blood sugar. This is medicine by the numbers, using blood tests to monitor health.
But do you really care what your blood cholesterol is, or do you want to avoid a heart attack? When you celebrate a lower blood pressure, aren’t you really celebrating a future with less risk of a heart attack or stroke?
We have been led to believe those two things are one and the same, that keeping your numbers under control with drugs is the same as avoiding these bad outcomes. The closer to normal you can get the numbers, the better. But is that really the case?
The answer is not so simple. In a study titled ACCORD, or Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes, researchers studied diabetic patients whose blood sugar already was somewhat controlled with medications but still was above normal. Half of them were kept on the same regimen, and half were given higher doses and more drugs to aggressively lower their blood sugar to normal. Lower it they did; there was a very significant reduction in the lab test with the drugs. So, of course, this group did better because their numbers were more under control, right?
Not so. The trial was halted after researchers found twice as many heart attacks and more overall deaths in the “intensive glucose control” group after 3.5 years. This group put on more weight and ended up requiring medical care for low blood sugar three times more than the other group. It turns out that, while there may be some benefit to lowering very high blood sugar, more control is not better.
Controlling high blood pressure is another example. While there are clear benefits from lowering very high blood pressure with medications, the evidence is not so clear for patients whose blood pressure is moderately high. In fact, the medical review website TheNNT.com states there is no benefit to taking meds to reduce blood pressure of 160 or lower, yet the risk of a side effect was one in every 12 patients.
That lady celebrating her lower cholesterol? Her celebrations may be premature. According to TheNNT website, using a statin in people who have not already had a heart attack does not reduce deaths at all. It does reduce non-fatal heart attacks, but only in one out of every 100 patients who take the drugs for five years. However, these drugs cause diabetes in one out of every 50 patients and muscle problems in one out of every 10.
Your lab numbers may be under control, but that typically just means the drug is artificially lowering them without addressing the underlying problem. Any benefit you gain may be more than offset by the side effects of the increasing number of medications required to achieve this control, and the fact that the problem may continue to worsen without real treatment.
Medications are not the complete — or, often, even the best — answer for these chronic health problems. As always, there are natural alternatives to these medications that are free of side effects, far safer and cheaper. While they may not be mainstream or well-known, these treatments can give the patient the benefit without the risks of side effects.
For example, there is some evidence acupuncture and chiropractic care can lower blood pressure. In ancient China, they typically were used together, along with herbs, diet and stress control.
A large study of 31,400 Swedish women showed a whopping 50 percent reduction in strokes for those who had five elements of a healthy lifestyle: a healthy diet, moderate alcohol intake, regular exercise, not smoking and a healthy weight.
Instead of looking to keep your numbers under control, I recommend the following wellness advice: Exercise at least 30 minutes a day, greatly limit sugars and highly refined foods, keep prescription and other medications to a minimum and use wellness care to keep your health up.
Dr. Michael Noonan practices chiropractic, chiropractic acupuncture and other wellness therapies in Old Town. He can be reached at noonanchiropractic@gmail.com.