Lunatic Advice...

There was an article on the BBC today about a study that is recommending that people over 55 are routinely prescribed statins and blood-pressure lowering tablets.

Check the link

Interestingly the study's lead researcher Professor Sir Nicholas Wald is also the director of The Wolfson Institute who's sponsors include the following:


    Aventis
    AstraZeneca
    Barts and The London Charity
    British Heart Foundation
    BUPA Foundation
    Camden PCT
    Cancer Research UK
    City and Hackney PCT
    CSIP - Care Services Improvement Partnership
    DH - Department of Health
    EPSRC - Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
    ESRC - Economic and Social Research Council
    EU - Commission of the European Community
    Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme (NHS)
    Genomica SA Sociedad Unipersonal
    Glaxo Smith Kline
    Home Office
    HTA - Health Technology Assessment Programme (NHS)
    Institute of Child Health
    McNeil AB
    Memorial Sloan Kettering
    MHRA - Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
    MRC - Medical Research Council
    NicoNovum AB
    NIH - National Institute for Health (US)
    Pfizer
    Princess Grace Hospital
    Royal Society of Medicine Press
    Tower Hamlets PCT
    Wellcome Trust
    Wolfson Foundation

Pharmaceutical companies highlighted

From here


So what we've got is a man 'Professor Sir' who is funded by drug manufacturers recommending that everyone over 55 takes more drugs

Hmmm..


C... O... N... F... L... I... C... T... E... D...

Does anyone else see this? And have the BBC pointed this out?

Why Benecol et al are complete crap!

It is quite simple really:

Pregnant women should not take statins as the lowering of cholesterol has been found to be associated (I'm not prepared to say causes - unlike some reputable people I have integrity and understand the difference between causation and association) with birth defects in babies.

Egg yolks contain a lot of cholesterol and they grow into healthy chickens thus growing animals need cholesterol.

If Benecol et al actually did anything to reduce cholesterol in a meaningful way - they'd be prescription-only; not sold to anyone who wants to spread something on their bread that is a couple of molecules away from plastic!