In my video on how doctors paternalistically mislead patients about statin risks and benefits

for their own good, I talk about how, for the majority of patients surveyed, the expectation

of benefit from drugs like Stentz is higher

than the actual benefit the drugs provide. So this creates tension between a patient's

right to know and the likely reduction in the chance they'd agree to take it if they knew how

little benefit the drug offered. On a population scale, that would be devastating.

For example, statins probably prevent tens of thousands of deaths a year in the United States.

However, if patients were routinely told the truth, as many as 75% of patients might stop treatment.

So unless we keep everyone in the dark, 30,000 people could die.

So what should doctors do?

I agree with these doctors that we have to tell the truth,

even if it means the patient doesn't take it and potentially dies as a result.

It's their body, their choice.

Of course, I wish this fully informed consent would extend to telling people about

the beneficial role of a healthy diet. But before we get into that, let's answer the statins

question. Are they worth it? Maybe you're in the 25% of people who would still take it,

even knowing the whole truth. So what is the whole truth? We've all seen the drug ads,

like this one touting a torvasted, Lipitor, has reduced the risks of a heart attack by about

a third. But as you can see in the small print, that means in a

large clinical study 3% of patients taking a sugar pill had a heart attack compared to 2%

of patients taking Lipitor. Going from 3 to 2 is indeed a drop by a third in relative

risk, but the drop in absolute risk was only 1%, which sounds less impressive.

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