The common drugs that are completely failing COPD patients

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is an umbrella term that includes progressive lung conditions like emphysema, asthma, and chronic bronchitis. COPD afflicts more than 15 million Americans, and it’s the 3rd most common cause of disease and deaths in the U.S.

Like all chronic conditions, inflammation plays a key role in COPD. And because statin drugs (typically used to treat cholesterol) have an anti-inflammatory effect, researchers have tested various statin brands against COPD in hopes of finding an effective treatment.

But those trials haven’t amounted to much, according to a 2019 investigation from Cochrane, an independent organization that analyzes health research.

The Cochrane team reviewed eight clinical trials that explored the effects of statins on COPD. More than 1,320 COPD patients participated in the placebo-controlled studies.

Analysis showed that statins reduced inflammation, but not enough to produce any improvements in lung function, quality of life, or exacerbations (the medical term for “flare ups”).

In Dr. Marc Micozzi’s view, trials like these aren’t really focused on patients, but rather on the business of generating extra profits for drug companies.

In his Breathe Better Lung Health Protocol, Dr. Micozzi pulls back the curtain to reveal the truth about statins. As he puts it, “They’re using old, failed cholesterol drugs in a new way, to see if they can turn another easy buck.”

This is known as “off label” prescribing. And while it’s perfectly legal, it often results in the misuse of drugs—at the patient’s expense.

First, do no harm

“The truth is,” Dr. Micozzi says, “the jig is up for big pharma’s ‘miracle’ cholesterol drugs.”

He explains that long-term studies show that statin drugs don’t even reduce cardiovascular disease risk or death rates. What’s worse, up to 20 percent of statin users suffer serious side effects like muscle damage, brain fog, type 2 diabetes, and cataracts. And about half of those patients have to stop using the drugs because the side effects are so bad.

To demonstrate why statins shouldn’t be involved in COPD treatment, Dr. Micozzi cites a trial that tested a statin versus placebo on 885 COPD patients. Patients in both groups experienced the exact same number of COPD flares. And while those in the statin group when 223 days without an exacerbation, the placebo group went exacerbation-free for 231 days.

And to make this statin failure complete, Dr. Micozzi adds, “The results were so bad in this study, the data safety and monitoring committee shut it down before completion.”

In another trial, researchers tested a statin on patients who suffered from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)—a rapidly progressive disease that occurs in some COPD patients. These patients also had sepsis, a serious, life-threatening blood infection.

Dr. Micozzi describes the results: “The researchers claim the two groups had the same outcomes. However, I looked closely at the actual results. The drug group had a 29 percent mortality rate. But the placebo group only had a 25 percent mortality rate.”

He adds that the worse outcome with statins doesn’t surprise him at all, given the metabolic damage that statin drugs cause some patients.

And like the first trial Dr. Micozzi described, this one was also stopped by the monitoring committee so that statin treatment wouldn’t do further harm.

In this natural approach, always aim high

Of course, Dr. Micozzi wouldn’t leave you high and dry without a plan. In his Breathe Better Lung Health Protocol, he offers three highly effective COPD interventions that are far superior to statins—and all quite safe, which is more than you can say for COPD drugs in general.

One of those interventions happens to be an approach that nearly everyone can benefit from: A daily supplement of vitamin D.

Dr. Micozzi notes that Vitamin D protects you against just about every chronic disease out there. Including COPD. “In fact,” he says, “for this study, the researchers found that giving vitamin D supplements to people with low vitamin D levels resulted in a 45 percent decrease in lung attacks.”

This team of researchers considered vitamin D blood levels below 25 nanomoles/liter (nmol/L) as deficient. But Dr. Micozzi doesn’t agree. He stresses the importance of aiming much higher—for blood levels between 50 and 75 nmol/L.

And if you have COPD, that high level is essential.

To get there, all you need, he says, is a daily vitamin D3 supplement of 10,000 IU (250 micrograms). And this regimen is particularly important during the fall and winter months, when the sun isn’t high enough in the sky to trigger natural vitamin D production in the skin.

Of course, this dosage is quite a bit higher than the recommended daily allowances (RDAs) from the government. But as Dr. Micozzi points out, the RDA for vitamin D is determined based on how much is needed to avoid bone disease.

“But as this—and many other studies—suggest, you need much more vitamin D daily to avoid chronic diseases…and certainly to achieve optimal health.”

You can find Dr. Micozzi’s personal vitamin D supplement recommendations—along with two more non-drug approaches for managing COPD symptoms—in his Breathe Better Lung Health Protocol.

Click here to learn more about this one-of-a-kind lung-protecting protocol, or to enroll today.

 

SOURCES

“Existing FDA-Approved Drugs Could Help Fight COVID-19 Disease” Sci News, 3/26/20. (http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/existing-fda-approved-drugs-covid-19-disease-08268.html)

“Statins for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)” Cochrane, 7/31/19. (https://www.cochrane.org/CD011959/AIRWAYS_statins-chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-copd)