Do Heart Stent Procedures Work for Angina Chest Pain?
Channel: NutritionFacts.org
Date: 2021-03-31

Sham surgery trials prove that procedures like nonemergency stents offer no benefit—only risk—to millions of patients.

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At this point, you may be thinking what a shameful, dark period of medical history. Millions of risky procedures were performed, killing people and causing strokes before it was actually put to the test. When it finally was, it was proven to offer to no benefit. Certainly, a cautionary tale for the future. In fact, they’re still being done. It's still one of the most common invasive procedures performed in the United States. Why Are Stents Still Used if They Don’t Work? That’s the subject of the next video.

This is part of a seven-video series. If you need to catch up, here are the first four:
• Do Angioplasty Heart Stent Procedures Work? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/do-angioplasty-heart-stent-procedures-work)
• Why Angioplasty Heart Stents Don’t Work Better (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/why-angioplasty-heart-stents-dont-work-better)
• The Risks of Heart Stents (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-risks-of-heart-stents)
• Angioplasty Heart Stent Risks vs. Benefits (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/angioplasty-heart-stent-risks-vs-benefits)

As I say over and over in this video series, during a heart attack, in an acute setting, angioplasty can be life-saving. As I reiterate, when I’m talking about stable CAD, I’m talking nonemergency situations. In an upcoming series I talk about pros and cons of statin drug therapy. Spoiler: If you have a history of heart disease or stroke, taking a statin is recommended. All of these videos, including the upcoming statin series, are available on a digital download of a webinar I did last year. You can find it here: https://drgreger.org/collections/videos/products/how-effective-are-statins-and-stents-digital

UPDATE: A new meta-analysis was just published last month and alas, there is still zero survival benefit to stent placement for stable coronary artery disease, but at least there were fewer heart attacks. Since this still didn’t translate into actually living any longer, the foundation of treatment remains medical and lifestyle management. Hat tip to Dr. Bitterman!  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33742721/)

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Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM

Captions for this video are available in several languages; you can find yours in the video settings. View important information about our translated resources: https://nutritionfacts.org/translations-info/

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