This new flu treatment is not what you’d call a “superdrug”

Empty promise

If you come down with a flu that’s bad enough to land you in the hospital, don’t be surprised if your doctor wants to give you a statin drug.

That’s right — a cholesterol-lowering statin…for the flu.

You see, if he’s one of those docs who still believes statins are magnificent, and if he also happened to see a wildly optimistic CBS report about using statins to prevent death from flu, he might jump to the conclusion that prescribing a statin for flu patients is a brilliant idea.

And nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m with Kwong

Previously I told you about research of statin use as a way to reduce the risk of dying when hospitalized with the flu. The idea is that statins are anti-inflammatory, so they might help alleviate flu symptoms.

Well omega-3 fatty acids are excellent anti-inflammatories too, but without the side effects of statins. So why not give flu patients an omega-3 supplement?

Of course that line of reasoning would interfere with mainstream medicine’s continuing campaign to convince consumers that statins are magic superdrugs.

No surprise then that it’s hard to say which is the larger farce: This hapless new study, or CBS’s completely absurd take on the study.

We’ll start with CBS. Their report includes this note: “Thirty-three percent of the patients were given statins, while the rest were given other antiviral medications.”

That makes it sound like a clinical intervention study. But no — not even close.

Of the 3,000 subjects followed in the study, 33 percent were already taking statins when admitted to the hospital, or they took statins after admission. They weren’t “given” statins by the researchers.

As for antiviral medications, some of the statin users received antivirals, but some didn’t. Some of the non-statin users received antivirals, but some didn’t. And antiviral use was unknown for more than 200 of the study subjects.

So the comment from CBS is simply untrue. And the fact that antiviral medication use was all over the highway is a good indication that this study is also all over the highway, but then ends up in a ditch.

For instance, many patients in both groups had serious health problems that could have easily caused their deaths, regardless of statin use. Hundreds had heart disease. Hundreds had metabolic disease. Hundreds had kidney disease. But more importantly (since we’re talking about the flu), more than 700 had chronic lung disease and almost 500 had asthma!

But here’s my favorite part…

The researchers state that their study “confirms” a previous study that suggested a link between statin use and a decrease in pneumonia hospitalizations and deaths, “although the effects were minimal.”

But then, CBS notes that some experts were “just plain dubious” about the study. One of them, Dr. Jeffrey C. Kwong, said, “At the end of the day, I’m not convinced that statins are protective.”

What CBS doesn’t say is that Kwong is not just any expert. He was the researcher that led the statin/pneumonia study — the one with “minimal” effects, and the one that this new study supposedly “confirms.”

So if your doctor asks you why you won’t take statins for the flu, just tell him if the lead researcher isn’t convinced, you’re not either…

No matter what CBS says.

Sources: 
“Association Between Use of Statins and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized With Laboratory-Confirmed Influenza Virus Infections: A Multistate Study” Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 205, No. 1, jid.oxfordjournals.org

“Statins reduce flu death risk by half, study shows” Ryan Jaslow, CBS News, 12/14/11, cbsnews.com