Crestor : The Super Strong Statin Drug

14/11/08

Statins are in the news again. This time it’s Crestor, the super-strong statin which is making headlines and by the looks of it is heading for world domination.

A recent two year study (funded by the manufacturers of Crestor, AstraZeneca) called Jupiter, released its results earlier this week. Jupiter only included patients with high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) a compound linked with inflammation in the body. The study involved 18 000 patients and was designed to see if Crestor reduced heart attacks and strokes in patients with high inflammation in the blood stream, but with low-to-normal cholesterol levels. The results show that heart attacks were cut by 54 per cent, strokes by 48 per cent and the need for a bypass cut by 46 per cent, compared with a placebo.

Why the big upset?

Now you may think that the study shows good results, but here are a couple of other things to consider.

1. The study was funded by the manufacturers themselves who are incentivised to broadcast only the good news. If you delve a bit deeper it’s clear that their interest is market domination and boosting their earnings. The results of the recent study have already boosted the share price of AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca gained as much as 4.7 per cent in London trading after the results of the study was made public. The stock was up 3.3 per cent in Japan and climbed 10 per cent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Crestor sales are already estimated at $3.45 billion for 2008 and may almost double based on the CRP study.

2. There is a major risk that statins like Crestor could become the next ‘miracle cure-all’ prescribed to almost anyone showing a slight risk of cardiovascular disease. On Monday Lori Mosca, professor of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, quipped at a meeting of the American Heart Association: ‘Should we put them in the drinking water... Are we going to use this like aspirin therapy? This finding is clearly expanding the universe of who should receive cholesterol pills.’

Not the first time and probably not the last

Here at HSI we have reported many times on the dangers of using statin drugs. With news of the ‘wonder’ that is Crestor and the threat that it may be prescribed at the slightest whim, we are compelled to do so again.

Statin drugs have two primary effects on the human body.

1. Inhibition of the mevalonate metabolic pathway which thereby inhibits cholesterol production.

2. Nuclear factor kappa B inhibition (NF-kB inhibition), meaning it exerts a powerful anti-inflammatory action thought to be the reason for its cardiovascular benefits.

Again, this all sounds good but as always there is more to it than meets the eye:

Statin drugs girds the entire mevalonate metabolic pathway. So it not only inhibits cholesterol production but also inhibits the natural production of CoQ10, dolichol, and selenoprotein, meaning that it interferes with an essential metabolic process on a cellular level.

"Peace is not God's gift to His creatures. It is our gift to each other." Elie Wiesel

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