Medical Profession is Getting Ready to Double the Number of Americans on Statins

Another 32 Million To Go On Prescription Drugs

The American lifestyle can be illustrated by what is now happening with heart disease, strokes and the prescription drug industry.  Basically the story is this.  Americans have a high incidence of preventable heart and arterial disease which leads to premature death and disability.  The cause is the lifestyle of the average American, primarily the diet and lack of exercise.

So the logical solution to the problem is for Americans to alter their diets and become more physically active.  But for the Greediest Generation and their offspring, that would mean an actual sacrifice, doing something that doesn’t yield as much pleasure as sitting in front of a game console or TV snarfing down as much junk food and sugar as can fit in the human body at a single sitting.

So the solution is to turn to chemistry, specifically drugs.  

New guidelines on statins from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Assn. could double the number of Americans taking the cholesterol-lowering drugs. (JB Reed/Bloomberg News)

Does Walter White know about this racket?

About 70 million Americans could take statins under new guidelines

The number of Americans taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs is set to double under new guidelines unveiled Tuesday by the American College of Cardiology and theAmerican Heart Assn.

The goal of prescribing statins to as many as 70 million people is to reduce the incidence of heart attacks and strokesin the United States, not merely to get patient’s LDL cholesterol – the “bad” kind that’s most closely linked to disease risk – into an ideal range, experts said.

So like almost every other issue in America, the populace is taking the stupid way out.  Is this what medicine looks like if Sarah Palin were in charge?