Lower cholesterol endlessly?
Currently there is a new cholesterol study[“Fourier study”Full text], which goes through the press (with am Article in SPIEGEL).
It is a large study with 27,564 people, double-blind, over 2 years in 49 countries, with the new active ingredient: evolocumab.
The result is: 15% fewer infarctions (1344 instead of 1563 patients). The study aims to prove that it is beneficial to lower cholesterol even further than usual.
15% fewer infarctions - wouldn't it be worth the new (very expensive) drugs to be widely used?
But there are catches: there was NO effect on mortality from cardiovascular causes, NO reduction in hospital admissions and NO improvement in mortality from all causes. Which means that the mortality rate for other reasons must have increased when the mortality rate from infarctions fell.
The question arises as to what sense a treatment makes if it only postpones the death and illness rate and does not reduce it.
The new drug Evolocumab is not a statin, but rather an antibody. Statins have massively severe and very common side effects. Are there perhaps fewer harmful side effects to be expected with the new remedy?
From the study: “Adverse events of interest including muscle-related, cataracts, injection site, allergic and neurocognitive.” In German: side effects were (under antheen)
- related to muscles,
- Cataract (cataract)
- at the injection site (the agent was injected weekly)
- Allergies
- and in the brain function
This is similar to the side effects of statins and suggests that the cholesterol itself is needed for exactly these functions.