DoctorOz: Statin Guidelines Explained - Who Needs Them?

Today we are focusing on the heart and something I have talked about a lot when it comes to your heart health is statins. Now this summer we were flooded with headlines about new studies that made me take a second look at who would benefit. I know there's still a lot of confusion about who should and should not be on a statin. So today I'm giving you my advice on who should be on these statins. Some of the women here are on statins and some aren't. But they're all worried about heart disease which is a sensible thing to do because it's the number one reason that we're lost to our families. So we know that statins can help prevent heart disease in addition to lowering cholesterol. So again, we knew it helped with cholesterol. We didn't realize it helped in addition to that until recently and that for me is a game changer. I'm gonna show you why this is so important and then we're gonna talk about it. All right, who wants to help a little bit? I got two arteries here. I need, let's say two women, two volunteers. Come up, cuddle up close. If you sit close to the arteries, you gotta help me with the arteries. All right, so here's the deal. These two arteries sort of look similar, don't they? You guys see any differences here? They both have yellow plaque. This is plaque, by the way. Oh, that has holes. That has a little hole in there, a little hole in the side. I'm gonna come back to why that might be important. So, but on the inside, they sort of look the same. You sort of agree? Yellow plaque, blood vessel here. That's your body. That's where the blood's going to feed you all, all right? That's a little piece of candy left over from the last cell. You want the candy? All right, all right. Now, I want you guys to pick up those little balls. Those balls represent blood cells. Now, normally in an artery, even if you've got plaque, this is important, even if you have plaque, it doesn't always cause a problem because the blood, go ahead and pour them down gently, can still get around the plaque and go where it needs to be. There it goes. And it all comes down. Help it along, help it along. Good, that's fine. Not all of them. Let's take some of those back. All right, now stand up. Now, you notice what happened. Most of the blood, like it's supposed to, went down, all right? And we're all in a good spot because of that. Now, there's not a big clot here. We got little itty bitty issues, but nothing big happening. But here's what's different. We always thought statins primarily helped by making sure you didn't get any extra plaque here. That's actually not the only way they help. They also help by reducing inflammation and irritation. Now, you mentioned that little hole here. This plaque is actually an inflamed, irritated plaque. It's not a happy plaque. So I want you to go ahead and see if you can wiggle that free. Go ahead. Oh, that's it. As you wiggle it free, that's good. As you wiggle it free, you've got no extra plaque and you've got this clot that starts to form inside there. This is a big deal. We took a plaque that was sort of stable and now it's ruptured because it was inflamed. Statins, in theory, prevent this whole thing from happening. Now, try to pour the blood down. And what ends up happening is the blood can't go anywhere. Keep going. You know what that's called? What did you just create? A clot. The other word we have for clot is heart attack. The other word we have for clot is stroke. That's what this is. This blood, nothing went down there. And this is the problem. Again, I'm gonna say this. It's not so much the plaque, it's the rupturing of the plaque, the irritation. It's this stuff. And if we can stop that rupture from happening, which it turns out statins can help us do, it changes who ought to be on them. Again, game changer. You all clear on this? Now, this is a plaque that theoretically is with someone who is on a statin. So this artery was with someone who had a statin. So go ahead and wiggle that free, the same way this young lady did. Go ahead, pull it off. Put your back into it. It's not going anywhere. It's stable. So the blood can keep getting past it because it hasn't ruptured. All right, now have a seat. Let's talk about this. This is the time to pay real close attention. Stop what you're doing, because I'm gonna talk about something that's really important for us all to get right. Now, what I recommended before is if your doc has suggested a statin, if they told you to go on a statin, I used to say, hold off for a second. Let's not rush the issues here. Let's try lifestyle for three months. Give it a shot. And you still can't fix it on your own because a lot of times you can, then let's go on the medication. But with all the new data that came out, all the new evidence, I'm changing my mind. I think that if your doctor recommends you go on a statin, that you make the lifestyle changes, but you also go on the statin at the same time. And give yourself the trial because you can still make yourself well enough that you may not need to stay on it. But you gotta go on it in the beginning to make sure you don't take any risks of this happening. So here's the question then. When will your doctor determine if you need to be on a statin? Any of you know the answer to that question? Sort of, maybe. What are you gonna say it's caused? High cholesterol. When cholesterol is high. Yeah, so we always thought it was high cholesterol, but what I just shared with you. Cholesterol causes the plaque, but it doesn't make it rupture. So it's not just the cholesterol. That's why what I'm about to say to you is some of the most important words I've said on this show. These are the guidelines that we believe everyone ought to be following. This is what doc is gonna be telling you. They're gonna say, first of all, if you've had a heart attack or have heart disease, already have evidence of a problem, you ought to be on a statin. They're also gonna say if your lousy LDL cholesterol is above 190, that's a big number. That's so much cholesterol that you're gonna end up with both these problems. But here's the last category. If you have another risk factor, for example, you've got diabetes and you have an LDL lousy cholesterol even 70, they're gonna put you on a statin pill. Now, you women all know your numbers, right? So if you're in any of those three categories over there, any of those three categories, I want you to please stand up. Be proud. Now, are any of you surprised that you're standing now? Not surprised? Are you on a statin, ma'am? You're not on a statin. What's your name? Linda. So why are you not surprised? If you just stood up to tell me that you probably ought to be on a statin, but you're not on one. Because my ACL numbers are going up higher. And my doctor said if it goes up to 7.0, I will be on something. So you're sort of a diabetic. I am a diabetic, yes. So with those numbers, then you have to be on a statin. So you have to be on two pills then, a diabetes pill and a statin pill. Yeah, we'll talk about that, yeah. We'll talk about that. Can we talk about it now? Yes. Is that a little frustrating for you, having to know you might have to go on some pills? Yes, it is. I'm trying to stop it before I have to go on anything, yeah. This is a really important conversation. Because a lot of folks have a wake-up call when they're told they have to go on a pill. And our first reaction might as well as, geez, do I have to really do that? And part of today's show is to understand how we can actually use that news as motivation to move forward. Not to sort of passively watch and say, you know, I'm really in trouble. I gotta go on all these pills. But rather say, what can I do to fix myself up now that I know that I was actually at risk? So if you're not, by the way, if you're not standing, it doesn't mean you're out of the woods either. It just means you're not quite as quick. You can all take a seat. Thank you very much. I wanna come back to you. What's your first name again? Linda. Linda will be prosperously talked to in the future. All right, so there's a calculator. You can all sit. There's a calculator, actually, for the people who are still sitting. They can help you figure out if you ought to be on one of these medications. Hopefully you won't have to, but take it into consideration. You can go to DrOz.com or talk to your doctor about it because they have this calculator as well. And when you know the risk of you having a heart attack or a stroke, sometimes that calculator will tell you to be on a statin. We didn't trust it that much when it first came out, but these new studies over the summer, big news, have revealed that it's really accurate. And therefore, I want you to look to see if that predictor is worth taking into consideration. Now, I'm gonna ask all you to stick around if you're willing to do this, because when we come back, I want you to meet Brenda. Now, she used her statin as motivation to make a change. That's something that Linda and others really gonna wanna listen to because that's, I hope, an inspiration that you won't forget. Stay with us. Thank you.