The drugs work: the truth about statins and SSRIs

Pharmacology can get a bad rap in the press. Professors George Davey Smith and David Nutt fight the case for statins and SSRIs.In a public lecture hosted by the British Association for Psychopharmacology and Bristol’s MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (where I work), Professors George Davey Smith and David Nutt stripped away the sensationalisation and misinformation around statins and SSRIs. They come from very different fields, George is an epidemiologist and David a psychiatrist, but both fields can help us understand the efficacy and safety of drug treatments.George took on the topic of statins. George is a perfect example of a scientist being led by the evidence - he himself wrote an article 25 years ago calling for cholesterol lowering drugs to cease to be prescribed, but now believes the evidence is overwhelming in support of the use of statins for lowering cholesterol, which reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. Not that you’d necessarily see that from the media, where their use has been linked to everything from baldness to memory loss, kidney damage to nosebleeds. Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Science Drugs Mental health Statins Society Source Type: news