Cancer. Cataracts. Confusion. Forgetfulness. Erectile dysfunction. Nerve damage. Tendonitis. Those are just some of the harms that people attribute to statins, which one in four Americans older than 40 now take to lower their LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
What gives some controversies such staying power? Sometimes it’s the food or supplement industry that stands to profit from a claim. Sometimes it’s rumors on social media or simply an ongoing debate among researchers. Here are six issues that may be less controversial than they seem.
In the late 1980s, researchers wanted to test whether drinking alcohol interfered with a new blood-pressure-lowering medicine called felodipine.
“To make this study more scientifically valid, we tried to find a beverage that would mask the taste of the alcohol,” says David Bailey, professor emeritus of clinical pharmacology at the Schulich School of Medicine at Western University and a scientist at the Lawson Health Research Institute in Ontario, Canada.
Grapefruit. Kale. St. John’s wort. Some foods and supplements just don’t mix with some drugs. The wrong combo could dampen a drug’s effect...or deliver a heftier dose. Here are some of the more common ones.
