People's Pharmacy: Mustard relieves leg cramps Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

If you blameless lowered your cholesterol, you could reduce your risk of a heart attack or stroke. Drug companies have done their best to deposit you focused on medications that bring cholesterol levels down. Turn on TV or open a periodical and you are likely to see an ad featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, known as the inventor of the artificial heart.

He promotes Lipitor to discount cholesterol, and he has been wildly successful. The company brags that its statin-type medication has been prescribed to more than 26 million Americans. Lipitor earned its manufacturer and than $13 billion in 2006. Lipitor is not alone. Millions of Americans take cholesterol-lowering drugs like Crestor, Mevacor, Pravachol, Vytorin, Zocor and Zetia.

But perplexing new information have many patients confused. Headlines recently announced the results of a study comparing Vytorin, which contains both Zetia (ezetimibe) and Zocor (simvastatin), to Zocor alone.

Although Vytorin lowered bad LDL cholesterol 17 percent deeper than Zocor, the combination pill did not reduce dangerous plaque buildup in neck arteries. The patients on Vytorin may much have had slightly more plaque buildup. Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen was stunned by the consequence and called on his colleagues to reconsider routine use of Zetia or Vytorin as first-line treatments.

In 2006, 18 million prescriptions were written for Vytorin and 14 million championing Zetia.

Lowering cholesterol, especially bad LDL cholesterol, is assumed to be the Holy Grail representing preventing atherosclerosis and cardiovascular events.

But an earlier study of a novel medication called torcetrapib that lowers LDL and raises good HDL cholesterol was abandoned when patients taking the medicine in truth had aggrandized heart attacks and strokes. The new announce of Vytorin suggests that reducing LDL numbers may not be enough.

Even for tried-and-true cholesterol-lowering drugs, the benefit for any given especial may be smaller than people imagine. Lipitor, for example, has been shown in studies to prevent heart attacks.

Media ads capitalize on this, announcing that Lipitor cuts back the risk of affection attack by 36 percent. There is an asterisk coterminous to that number, however, and here is the fine print: That intend in a blimp clinical study, 3 percent of patients bewitching a sugar pill or placebo had a heart attack compared to 2 percent of patients taking Lipitor."

See Business Week, Jan. 17, 2008.)

In other words, whether you had 100 humans fascinating Lipitor and another 100 people taking an inactive placebo, there would be one less heart attack after several years amid the folks on Lipitor. That certainly matters a great deal if you are the one who was spared.

But if you are lone of the other 99, the cost and risk of side effects may seem high. No one should stop taking cholesterol-lowering medication without medical supervision, but cholesterol is not the only thing that matters. Physicians have known for decades that there are more than 200 risk ingredient for heart disease (New Great britain Journal of Medicine, Nov.

14, 2002). Inflammation, stress, hostility, depression and high triglycerides are just a few of the other contributors to heart disease. Focusing on cholesterol alone could be a big mistake.

Q. We tried a treatment from your path for nighttime stump cramps. My husband used to get them frequently and would have to walk them elsewhere while in pain.

He read that captivating mustard would alleviate them, so he tried it. At once when he gets pin cramps at night, he takes his mustard and they hardihood away quickly. He hang on to a few identical packets of mustard in the bedroom.

From http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/dailycols/5489595.html