Statins for Kids

I was flipping through one of those free health magazines from my local health food store and the headline "Statins for Kids" caught my eye. What in the world??? I read on. The article filled me in on a recent report from the American Academy of Pediatrics that recommends: dietary changes (great suggestion), increased physical activity (good suggestion) along with pharmaceutical drugs (what??).

Dr. Alan Greene suggests that this recommendation will "open the door for pharmaceutical companies to heavily advertise and promote [drug] use in eight-year-old children when we don't know yet the long-term effect on using these drugs on prepubertal kids."

My thoughts exactly.

In my mind this is one more way for drug companies to make more money on what is already their most popular product. Is taking a statin at age 8 really going to prevent heart attacks at age 50? What makes us believe that pills can cure disease or even prevent it? Sure your symptoms may dissipate with a drug but at what cost? You might kill your liver and kidneys in the process of "preventing" heart disease. We so quickly forget that probably 90% of our health lies in our own hands. Genes schmenes.

This isn't rocket science folks...give your kids healthy foods, no packaged junk, no soda, no candy, cut out the sugar and the white flour. Parents, you buy the food so you are allowed to decide what goes on your table. Your kids might not like it first, after all our 3-year-old doesn't like veggies very much but she eats them because that's the rule at our house. You eat something enough you learn to like it.

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