(no subject)

[the_rck]

I didn’t manage to reach my mother yesterday. I left a message. She and my step-father likely went out for the day.

I’m trying to figure out if Scott’s parents would believe the research I’m finding online about reasons not to combine niacin with statins. I know that Scott’s father takes both and that Scott’s parents think that vitamin supplements are better medicine than any prescription. I mainly want to point them at it because diabetes is a known side effect of combining the two. Scott’s father developed diabetes two or three years ago. There’s also a good bit of recent research showing that there aren’t any benefits to taking niacin with statins, to the point that the FDA has withdrawn approval for medications already on the market that combined the two.

I wrote 951 words last night. I was tempted to stay up a bit in order to break 1000, but it seemed like a bad idea.

Given that I didn’t get back to sleep after Scott got up, I think I needed the extra sleep at the beginning of the night. I’m hoping I can nap this morning, but my track record in that direction is poor. I’m not feeling terrible yet, but it’s edging in. I’d really like to be functional later today.

Comments

[lemon_badgeress]

Does it indicate that the diabetes might go away if he stops? If not, honestly, if the ship has sailed I wouldn't pick this hill to die on. If it might improve his health dramatically to stop....yeah, that's important.

[the_rck]

My impression is that the diabetes might go away. Nothing I saw explicitly said that, but it was included in a list of symptoms that made people in studies stop taking the niacin (intestinal problems, muscle pain, rashes, other skin problems, and some other stuff, too). The wording seemed to indicate that people stopped so that those side effects would stop.

There was one study that linked the niacin/statin combination to a certain type of stroke, but that doesn't appear to have come up in any other studies, so I'm not inclined to raise a fuss on that count.

Niacin can affect levels of HDL and LDL, but the studies showed that people taking both statins and niacin had the same number of heart attacks over four or five years as people taking just the statins.

I'm just afraid that, if it doesn't come from Dr Oz or someone similar, they won't pay attention.

[the_rck]

At this point, I'm thinking that I might throw the studies I've found at Scott and his siblings and let them decide.

[lemon_badgeress]

That seems perfectly reasonable to me.

[the_rck]

Further research suggests that stopping niacin would not make the diabetes go away but that continuing the niacin hugely increases the risk of 'an adverse event' for someone with current diabetes.

The FDA removing prescription meds containing niacin from the market is a honking big red flag saying that there are issues with it. The FDA only moves that way when there's pretty compelling evidence.