Statins are a group of drugs used to lower cholesterol levels in the blood stream.  It helps to lower the risk of atheroma or a plaque build-up inside the blood vessels.  As a result, statins help to reduce the risk of having a heart attack.  

Recently, there is a 20 years study on people who taking Statins had concluded that there are many unforeseen effects to statin users.  It's not the drug itself has the main problem, but it's the behavioral and psychological problems associated with the taking the drugs. 

Here are the findings that have negative impacts on people's health:

• Calorie and fat intake increase
  
• License to eat more
  
• Increased 29 percents to have diabetes - since the known side effects of statin are diabetes and muscle aches 
  
• Eat less healthy food
  
• Slack off on exercise
  
• Average body-mass has increase from 29 to 31
  
• Statins provide a false reassurance
  
• Lead to abandon healthy lifestyles
  

People should really listen to their body more closely and don't treat the body like a machine.  Don't just take the medicine and stop thinking about the root cause of problem (why it caused at the beginning).  Medicine like statins do not really treat the cause of why your level of cholesterol increases at the first place, it only lowers it by interrupting the cholesterol production pathway in the body.  Researchers should shift their focus on researching on the reason why the body wants to increase it at the first place, and not just blindly reduce it without examining other causes.  From the recent research results, we can see that the body still craves for fatty unhealthy foods.  I think there must be some connections or biological explanations behind it to cause this behaviors.  This phenomenon is really similar to how diet soda actually triggering your body to start craving for sweet things, and then you end up eating more cupcakes or craving for more carbohydrates.

So if you are taking statins, you should re-examine your lifestyles seriously.  Think ways to improve your overall health and not just depending on doctors to take care of you.  It's your body and give yourself a plan or timeline on how to take care of yourself.

Here are some changes you should consider making include:

• Eating a healthy diet that's low in fat, cholesterol and salt
  
• Exercising 30 minutes a day - light exercise is fine
  
• Managing stress - find the root causes of why they are stressing
  
• Stop bad habits such as smoking or heavy drinking or super size soft drink

In my book (shown on the right), it also has a section describing how statins reduce the production of cholestrol in the body.  

Examples of statins:  
Atorvastatin, Simvastatin, Rosuvastatin, Pravastatin, Lovastatin, Fluvastatin, Ezetimibe/simvastatin, Pitavastatin, Cerivastatin, Mevastatin, Atorvastatin/Amlodipine, Niacin/simvastatin, Simvastatin/sitagliptin, Niacin/lovastatin

Note: Don't stop taking a statin without talking to your doctor first.

Brand Name: Tenormin

Therapeutic Type: Beta Blocker, Beta1 Selective

This medicine is used to treat high blood pressure, chest pain, or pressure from the heart or called angina.  In addition, it normalizes the unusual heartbeats or arrhythmias.  This is available only with doctor's prescription.  In the book, A Quick Understanding on What Doctors Are Prescribing, I explained how it works in details with detail graphical illustration on why the beat is off in time.

Just give me a few minutes, you will remember how it really works.

It's recommended to take some food with this medicine in order to avoid upset stomach. It is possible to have liver damage with this drug.

Try not to drive when taking this medicine. Do abruptly stop this medicine without consulting your doctor.  This drug may take 1 or 2 weeks to have effect, but once your body gets used to it, do stop taking it unless you slowly reduce your dosage according to the direction of a physician.

So do not just stop it since you felt better and immediately switch to another blood pressure drug, they work differently.  Again, before starting any new medicines, please be sure to talk to your healthcare provider. 

Acarbose or (Precose in US, Glucobay in Europe, Prandase in Canada) is prescribed for treating Type 2 diabetes. It can be combined with other diabetes medicines and it is used for lower blood sugar since it can prevent the breakdown of starch into sugar when eating food.  

In book, A Quick Understanding on What Doctors Are Prescribing: Pharmacology for Everyday People & Finding Alternative Medications , it described that acarbose works by competiting against carbohydrates found in food supposedly binding to enzyme in order to be digested, but now the place of binding is blocked by acarbose.  As a result, less carbohydrate will be broken down into glucose molecules and sugar level in the blood will not be dramatically increased.

However, the side effect occurs when undigested carbohydrates were left in the colon and other bacteria will digest them which then caused gastrointestinal side effects.  In addition, it is possible for patients to experience hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) if their food do not have monosaccharide.