Public health recommendations have always been a hard sell. Resistance to new behaviors – like the mask-wearing and social distancing advised during the COVID-19 pandemic – is part of human nature.
Statins lower cholesterol if taken daily – but may also have other effects on the body.
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Clinical trials are used to establish that medicines work. But these don’t take into account the genetic differences between us that can mean very different outcomes for different patients.
Having very high levels of HDL is associated with increased mortality. But that doesn’t mean it’s not ‘good cholesterol’.
The benefits of healthy older people taking statins to prevent heart disease and stroke needs to be balanced with the risk of side effects.
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Using electronic medical records may be a better way to treat those at risk of heart disease than treating everyone or treating only known ‘at risk’ groups.
There is an increasing focus on alternative treatment strategies, developed to treat other diseases and conditions but re-purposed to tackle TB.
Lipitor is widely prescribed for cholesterol, but incorrect negative reports have seen its use decline slightly in Australia.
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Lipitor was approved by the government in 1997, and while under patent protection it was the highest-selling drug of all time with worldwide sales of more than US$12 billion a year.
While studies suggests that cholesterol-lowering statins can make the flu shot less effective, the vaccine remains the best available tool for reducing flu-related complications and death.
Media are important. Especially the media we trust. One might express the effect of a piece of journalism (J) about, say, a particular drug or food, as a factor of media authority (A), multiplied by the…
Half a million fewer statins were dispensed to patients in the eight months following the Catalyst broadcasts.
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Apart from proposing a co-payment for visiting doctors, the last federal budget also contained a proposal to increase the level of co-payments for medications. The government seems to have given little…