How lowering some numbers have upped kids’ chances of becoming diabetic

We Americans are spending over $7 billion a year for Lipitor. And that’s just one statin drug!

But it looks like even those billions and billions aren’t enough to make money-hungry drug companies happy.

Now they’re gunning for high school and college kids.

A study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that if cholesterol guidelines for kids were to be followed to the letter, some 483,500 Americans between the ages of 17 and 21 would now be put on statin drugs.

The new guidelines set a lower cholesterol target for kids than adults. That made nearly half a million teens and young adults eligible for statins, practically overnight.

Kids under 21 can now become “down with Crestor” (or Lipitor), whether they actually have high cholesterol or not.

The excuse given for having two sets of cholesterol guideline numbers is that all these risk factors can start appearing when you’re a teen. And it’s important to nip those dangers for heart disease in the bud when you’re young.

But no one seems to mention all the diseases that statins can cause. Especially if you start taking them at 17.

We know the drugs cause cataracts, mental impairment, muscle pains, fatigue and liver dysfunction and even hardening of the arteries.

But what these kids might have to struggle with first is diabetes.

Even the FDA admits that.

Taking statins, it warns in an update, may cause “an increased risk of raised blood sugar levels and the development of Type 2 diabetes.”

How much of an added risk? Well, a recent study done in Finland found the likelihood of getting the disease rose an unbelievably 50 percent in men who took statins. And you can bet the longer you’re on the drugs, the higher the risk.

But then, the FDA has been approving diabetes drugs in record numbers the past few years.

Maybe it’s just trying to stay ahead of an epidemic – an epidemic these new statin guidelines are destined to cause.

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