Cardiologists suggest that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs be given out free with fast food meals
Fast Food: Do You Want Fries with That Lipitor?
4.9/5 - (16 votes)
Why go to the bother of changing one’s diet, when you could just take a pill? In fact, they could just hand them out at the drive-through. Ridiculous, you say? Published in a prestigious cardiology journal last year: “The risk reduction associated with the daily consumption of most statins…(the cholesterol-lowering drugs) is more powerful than the risk increase caused by the daily extra fat intake associated with a…Quarter Pounder® with cheese and a small milkshake. In conclusion, statin therapy can neutralize the cardiovascular risk caused by harmful diet choices.”
Look, you want to ride a motorcycle, smoke, drive? We got helmets, filters, seat belts, right? If people are going to continue to smoke cigarettes, might as well put some filters on them. “Likewise, some individuals eat unhealthily.”
Hey, “Fast food outlets already offer free condiments to supplement meals.” So why not a “statin-containing accompaniment?” You’ve heard of ketchup packets? How about “complimentary statin packets?”
What about statin safety, side effects? They thought of that: “Statins have a favorable ‘benefit-to-risk’ ratio, with only rare adverse effects reported in [liver], kidney, and muscle tissue…If statins are to be made more readily available by fast food outlets, statin toxicity might become a greater concern…” But, look, we’re talking about people who eat Quarter Pounders with cheese and a milkshake. Surely: “We can conclude that the documented safety record of statins is substantially better than that of fast foods!”
They conclude: “We envisage a future in which fast food restaurants encourage a holistic approach to healthy living. On ordering an unhealthy meal, the food will arrive labeled with a warning message similar to those found on cigarette packets (“This meal increases your risk for heart disease and death”), and on the tray, next to the ketchup, will be a new and protective packet, “MacStatin,” which could be sprinkled onto a Quarter Pounder or into a milkshake. This could easily be provided at no extra charge, just as sugar and salt…” That’s their holistic approach; drugs in your Happy Meal, right?
See Figure 4, it says. Are you ready? I couldn’t even make this stuff up.
Figure 4: New concept in fast food risk reduction. “No tablet can completely neutralise the harm to your individual health from eating unhealthfully. Better ways to reduce your risk of death from heart attack include: eating healthily…See your doctor for complete advice.” Though, of course, your doctor may very well be somewhere behind you, in the drive-through line.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
Why go to the bother of changing one’s diet, when you could just take a pill? In fact, they could just hand them out at the drive-through. Ridiculous, you say? Published in a prestigious cardiology journal last year: “The risk reduction associated with the daily consumption of most statins…(the cholesterol-lowering drugs) is more powerful than the risk increase caused by the daily extra fat intake associated with a…Quarter Pounder® with cheese and a small milkshake. In conclusion, statin therapy can neutralize the cardiovascular risk caused by harmful diet choices.”
Look, you want to ride a motorcycle, smoke, drive? We got helmets, filters, seat belts, right? If people are going to continue to smoke cigarettes, might as well put some filters on them. “Likewise, some individuals eat unhealthily.”
Hey, “Fast food outlets already offer free condiments to supplement meals.” So why not a “statin-containing accompaniment?” You’ve heard of ketchup packets? How about “complimentary statin packets?”
What about statin safety, side effects? They thought of that: “Statins have a favorable ‘benefit-to-risk’ ratio, with only rare adverse effects reported in [liver], kidney, and muscle tissue…If statins are to be made more readily available by fast food outlets, statin toxicity might become a greater concern…” But, look, we’re talking about people who eat Quarter Pounders with cheese and a milkshake. Surely: “We can conclude that the documented safety record of statins is substantially better than that of fast foods!”
They conclude: “We envisage a future in which fast food restaurants encourage a holistic approach to healthy living. On ordering an unhealthy meal, the food will arrive labeled with a warning message similar to those found on cigarette packets (“This meal increases your risk for heart disease and death”), and on the tray, next to the ketchup, will be a new and protective packet, “MacStatin,” which could be sprinkled onto a Quarter Pounder or into a milkshake. This could easily be provided at no extra charge, just as sugar and salt…” That’s their holistic approach; drugs in your Happy Meal, right?
See Figure 4, it says. Are you ready? I couldn’t even make this stuff up.
Figure 4: New concept in fast food risk reduction. “No tablet can completely neutralise the harm to your individual health from eating unhealthfully. Better ways to reduce your risk of death from heart attack include: eating healthily…See your doctor for complete advice.” Though, of course, your doctor may very well be somewhere behind you, in the drive-through line.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
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Fast Food: Do You Want Fries with That Lipitor?
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
Be sure to check out all my other videos on heart disease and statins.
Also check out my associated blog posts for more context: Generic Lipitor is not the answer to our heart disease epidemic and Stool Size and Breast Cancer Risk.
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