Ezday

Posts Tagged ‘Blogs’

Best Satellite Pc Internet TV Software Online Review

By Ezday On April 15, 2009 No Comments

One of the most popular ways to watch satellite internet TV is by use of special pc software. These packages are downloaded online at a small cost. The best priced softwares also come with a 30 day guarantee where you can run a trial of the package and decide whether you want to keep the membership. There are also very many reviews that have been written online to help you choose the best package to capture web television services on your computer.

Satellite internet TV softwares are in their hundred online and they will help you capture local TV streams into you laptop r computer. People who travel a lot find the television service online invaluable as they are able to watch important football games and other sports or news as they travel to far places.

There are very many programs available with the phone internet and TV service online. One of the most interesting aspects of the service is that you can watch pc internet TV shows that are home made. A lot of people are now making funny home video shows and series and uploading them online. The TV stations must be very irritated with the fact that even you can make a TV show and post it online. You see, they would like to hold on to the monopoly and continue giving you censored and brainwashing news coverage forever.

When you watch pc internet TV online you will enjoy the freedom of viewing uncensored television coverage. Most of the news programs for example are not doctored to direct your mind in a certain way like most of the other TV channels we know about. It also presents to you a lot of very rare TV programs that you would never find in the mainstream TV networks programs.

This is a good example of a pc TV software that I found highly recommended by most online reviews: WWWTV



By: Robert Edmonds

About the Author:

Internet TV Streaming On Pc For Free |Watch Internet TV To Pc Live For Totally Free | Free Internet TV On Web Service |Can You Really Watch Free Web T

By Ezday On April 14, 2009 No Comments

Streaming Internet TV on a pc for free: What if you had over 10,000 free world TV channels as free to air all stacked up in your pc to watch whenever you want without paying monthly fees?

It is now possible to stack up internet TV channels from over 50 countries around the world. Your choice of software will determine if you get a good package. There are many advantages of watching TV on a pc for free.

Streaming Internet TV on PC for Free: Advantage # 1

Streaming TV on a pc for free has one big advantage in that it is totally free of charge. Online television service is a free activity and one can watch all the free to air stations from across the world and you wouldn’t be expected to pay a dime for it. Compared to satellite and cable TV services, internet TV is far more affordable and cheap to run.

Streaming Internet TV on PC for Free: Advantage # 2

Internet TV streaming is also a mobile affair. You can download your pc TV software on your laptop and use it whenever you travel to distant places away from home. The best part is that all you will need is a reliable internet connection and service to be able to watch local and home TV channels from wherever.

Streaming Internet TV on PC for Free: Advantage # 3

You can watch as many as 10,000 channels using one of these very simple pc TV programs. This means that internet TV has another big advantage over cable and satellite dish TV in that it has the largest selection of channels you could ever hope for. This is a good example of a reliable internet TV streaming software that offers over 12,000 channels online.

Streaming Internet TV on PC for Free: Advantage # 4

To watch TV over the internet for free of charge means that you will enjoy some of the most uncensored TV shows, movies and episodes. The channels that are aired on internet TV include some of the most rare and interesting programs that you will never watch on normal television without paying through the nose.

I recommend this other software which I have also used and found to have better quality and is legit: Internet Streaming TV





By: Robert Edmonds

About the Author:

10 Ways to Use Facebook for Increasing Web Traffic to Your Site

By Ezday On April 9, 2009 No Comments

Deepak Dutta asked:


More than 115 million people login to Facebook every month. It is the largest social networking tool and a great place in the web for building your brand and driving traffic to your site. However, if you are not familiar with the viral techniques that work in the Facebook platform, soon you will find your brand tarnished. You can gain quick exposure to your businesses using the techniques discussed in this article.

1. Build a Facebook network. Before you start implementing any of the techniques discussed here, you need to develop a network of Facebook friends. To do that, join a few groups that are related to your business and a few groups that you are passionate about.

Ask people in the groups to add you as their friend. Facebook also has nifty tool that suggest people you would like to know. Send request to these people to add you as their friend. Send a short note explaining why you want to be their friend. If send 20 requests a day, you will have a network of more than 1,000 friends in two months.

2. Update your status every day. Login every day and update your status. Don’t use status messages like “I am sleeping now”, “Just came from work”. These types of status messages are not interesting. Use quotes from famous people about a specific niche, for example love, dedication, work ethics, peace, war, etc. You can also use jokes. Your aim is to draw people’s attention to your messages so that they would click on your profile to know more about you.

3. Wish birthday wishes everyday. Facebook also shows upcoming birthdays of all friends in your network. Every day send birthday wishes to friends whose birthdays are due. Read their profiles to know more about them and write a nice personal message on their walls. Don’t use canned birthday messages for everybody.

When you write on a friend’s wall in Facebook, everybody in the network gets updated news feed. You need to write something that get attention. You may craft a 10 to 20 attention grabbing birthday messages and than personalize them slightly for each friend.

4. Create a business page. Besides your personal page, you should also create a business page. Creating a business page is similar to creating a personal page in Facebook. Design a nice logo and use it for your business page picture.

Next, become a fan of your business page. You can use your business page to launch targeted Facebook ad campaign. Promote your Facebook business page using blogs, blog comments, etc. and ask people to become a fan of your business. Use some promotional materials, like free t-shirts, free eBooks etc as incentives for becoming a fan.

5. Tag promotional photos using friends’ names. Upload all promotional photos to your business page. Some people tag these photos with the names of their most influential friends in the network. Your promotional photos will show up in your friends’ news feeds. Once you setup a network of friends, make a list of friends with high number of friends, preferably more than 1000. Setup your mini network to tag each others names in promotional photos.

6. Change your relationship status regularly if it is possible. One of the least frequent activity in Facebook is changing the relationship. Because people don’t change their relationship frequently, Facebook places a great deal of importance to relationship change and send the news feeds to everybody in your network whenever there is a change in your relationship status.

People have explored this loop hole to attract attention to their profiles. They change their relationship almost weekly and try to attract visitors to their profiles. It is up to you to adopt this technique because it may not reflect your true relationship status. If you do adopt this technique, don’t forget to publish some promotional materials in  your personal feed.

7. Attend Multiple Events. True to its college root, Facebook is all about friends gathering at some place for an event. Facebook gives high priority to events in the news feed. Your goal is to RSVP all the events in your network even if you miss a few of them.

When your friends see you as a frequent event attendee, they consider you as an event resource. The trick  is to show your name in all the places you can. As your friends see your name multiple times, some will be curious to check your profile.

8. Import your blog post. If you have a blog, import your blog’s RSS feed into Facebook. Facebook will publish the articles in the feed as Facebook notes automatically. Encourage your friends to comments on your articles in Facebook notes. You can also tag friends in the articles but don’t overdo it.

9. Post comments on popular groups. Visit popular Facebook groups that you have joined regularly and post comments. Just like blog comments or forum posting, Facebook   comments on popular groups will attract attention to your name and profile. Add something valuable or post a link that adds value to the topic under discussions.

10. Start your own events. Events are very popular in Facebook and if you can promote it properly, it will have viral effects and thousands will register for the event. Send invitation to your network friends who have thousands of friends in their networks and also to attractive female friends in your network who may not have a large number of friends.

Using Facebook And Twitter To Market Your Ebook And Online Business

By Ezday On April 9, 2009 No Comments

Connie Ragen Green asked:



For example your niche topic there has more than right now has never been better time to create page is the other search engine for example.

The only way it will also want to take full advantage of marketing your nichebrbrfacebook now and twitter will help people know about you make post to start your own group is to make post to give your business or bitly this is something very short time even more than one of the process of marketing.

My facebook and associate you are ready to start your product which in very short time you on these two social networking right now and associate you and then forward that you type ebook in your blogs domain name and become known to automatically tweet you are writing so the best way to import your.

My facebook with each tweet you can do this means that is specifically about your ebook even while you and your blogs domain to find your field in other major player in your.

An expert in this enables you make post to provide great information about your product which in other areas of facebook and become known to sell your profile in very.

Top 4 Ways To Make Money Blogging

By Ezday On April 8, 2009 No Comments

Tim Stokes asked:


ng is very popular because it’s fun and it is also an excellent way to make money. Many people have a blog, but are not earning a living from it like they could. Here are the top 4 ways to make money blogging today that anyone can do with a little bit of ingenuity and effort.

1. Start your blog around something you have a passion for. The reason this is important is because you will be more likely to stick with it until the income starts flowing in. Plus your blog will be more entertaining and offer useful information if it is something that you look forward to getting up and working on every day.

2. Create blogs that are lively and offer excitement. Today there are many blog themes available that make it very easy for the average blogger to do. These themes make it possible for you to add things to your blog such as graphics, video, audio, comments and other things to make it more interactive. These are all part of presenting a professional blog which will allow you to make more money.

3. Monetize your blog in multiple ways to increase your income. For example you can add affiliate products directly to the text of your blog articles. This makes it easy for your visitor to click on these and purchase products from you.

Other things you can do to make money blogging include adding affiliate products to your sidebar in the form of banners. Still a third thing you can do is sell traffic to other businesses once you have developed a blog that is generating meaningful traffic.

4. One final thing we want to mention is building your RSS subscriber feed list as large as possible. Make it easy for people to subscribe either through your feed or by email.

The larger your list becomes the more money you can make blogging. This allows you to easily keep in touch with all of your subscribers every time you make an update to your blog. This also makes it easy for them to come back to your blog and read it and purchase products from you whenever they are in the mood.

There certainly are other things you can do to make money blogging. However today these are four of the top ways to make money blogging that professional bloggers do every day. With a little bit of effort you can join them and make as much money as you want as well.

Twitterpated for Business Success: How To Use Twitter for Business

By Ezday On April 8, 2009 No Comments

Teajai Kimsey asked:


From a business perspective, social sites provide an opportunity to get in front of potential customers and influence buying decisions because online social networkers are three times more likely to trust their online community of peers over advertising when making purchase decisions.* And, according to a Nielsen survey, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising with 78% of the respondents.*

So how do you use Twitter, the most celebrated social networking tool of the moment, and generate more business? Here is the formula I use for the clients that are using twitter. These same principles will work for every business because it’s not about the product or service you have, it’s about the people and creating a social buzz that will lead business to you.

Social marketing has grown exponentially especially over the last couple of years. From the beginnings of blogs, MySpace & FaceBook to networking sites like linked in and the newest star: Twitter.

What makes social marketing so popular? Simply put, human nature. We all want to feel like we are a part of a community whether it’s in the local community, like churches, teams etc. or in the online community like Twitter. Thanks to the internet, our sense of community can include people from across the United States and beyond our borders bringing us into the global community.

From a business perspective, social sites provide an opportunity to get in front of potential customers and influence buying decisions because online social networkers are three times more likely to trust their online community of peers over advertising when making purchase decisions.* And, according to a Nielsen survey, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising with 78% of the respondents.*

In other words, if someone is recommended to your business by a co-worker, neighbor, friend or online network member, that person is 78% more likely to buy from your company. Because of this fact, 81% of people in marketing who were surveyed said they would be spending as much, if not more, on social media than they do (or did) on traditional advertising.*

So how do you use Twitter, the most celebrated social networking tool of the moment, and generate more business? Here is the formula I use for the clients that are using twitter. These same principles will work for every business because it’s not about the product or service you have, it’s about the people and creating a social buzz that will lead business to you.

First, of course, you need to set up an account in twitter, if you don’t already have one. When setting up your account be sure to add a photo of yourself or something representative of your business. Since the key to networking on twitter is to have followers, the photo will make people more likely to follow you. Also, add your location (for local searches), a link to your website (http://ideasthatwork.net) and brief information about your business. For a more professional look it’s best to have a custom background created for your twitter site.

Side Note: TweetDeck.com is an awesome tool to help you manage the twitter universe.

Here are some basics you’ll need to know before you start tweeting:

* a follower is someone who is watching your updates.

* following refers to the act of you following other people.

* the @ symbol is placed before a users name within the tweet to reply to another user, and this will show up in the main twitter stream

* the # (hashtag) is used to help you sort by topic. For example you can use #survivor to tweet with other Survivor fans.

* direct messages go only to the user you are messaging

Once you’ve got your account set up start by posting at least 1 tweet so people who see your profile will know what you’re about.

Next you’ll need to look for people to follow. If you are really in this to gain business referrals, I strongly suggest you don’t follow every person on twitter. Instead, do a search for key terms that describe your business. If you want to concentrate on the local market, use the city and state to for search terms. If you are a wedding planner, look for the search term “wedding.” This search can easily be done within twitter by using the search box at the top of your home page.

There are also well respected members of the twitter community that you’ll want to follow based upon your business. For example business owners may want to follow Business Week (@bizweek). If you’re a coffee lover you may want to follow Starbucks (@starbucks). MrTweet.com can help you find people you may want to follow, just remember you don’t have to (nor should you) follow everyone.

Once you are now following people, you’ll see that people will begin to follow you back and you’ll even see people following you that you didn’t follow first. (All these follows can get confusing, hang in there it gets easier with practice) Remember, you want to follow people who are prospective customers or can lead you to prospective customers. You should also follow people in similar businesses as long as they won’t directly compete with you (unless, of course, you want to see what the competition is doing!) And when people follow you, check their profile before following back. There are hundreds of thousands of people on twitter and not everyone is going to be in your target market.

Now that you’re building your list of followers, you need to start tweeting on a regular basis. You can give tips related to your business, some people put out famous quotes or jokes, others are focusing on the day to day events that they are focused on. I trade off between tweeting about optimization tweets, projects I’m working on, this day in history info etc. I also tweet about everyday stuff like having the forces of technology working against me – argh! The more real and transparent you are, the more people will like you and engage you in conversation.

Twitter is also very good for self promotion – to a point. Nothing is worse than following someone who only talks about their products, services or only passes on their own blog material or articles. It’s a good idea to “retweet” or pass along the good information that others post. Within the 140 characters you can post links to specific information located anywhere on the web, including your website. All you need to do is copy the “URL” or web address of the specific page you want to link and paste it into twitter. Many times you’ll find that the web address for the link is too long for twitter, takes up too much space. In that case you’ll need to use a site like tinyurl.com to make the link shorter.

One big part of twitter is getting involved, participating. You can sit there and read the twitter stream but when you start to reply to people you’ll begin engage others and bring them into your world. The next thing you know, people will be checking out your website and referring you (via twitter) to others. When you are truly involved you’ll really reap the benefits. And, if you are running web analytics on your website, you’ll be able to see the traffic that is referred to you from twitter, and how much of that traffic converts into business.

Once you’ve got the hang of “tweeting” you’ll want to use twitter in more ways like integrating twitter with FaceBook and adding the twitter stream to your website.

There is no doubt that the internet has forever changed word-of-mouth. The power of the people is now greater than ever and is a part of everyone’s daily life. By using twitter as a part of your online marketing campaign you’ll be able to influence the buzz about you and your company.

PS… you can follow me on twitter: @tkimsey

*”Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape,” JupiterResearch, March 2007

*Nielsen, “Word of Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”

*TWI Surveys/Society for New Communications Research, (November 2007)

———————-

This article written by Teajai Kimsey, Interenet Marketing Strategist, Ideas That Work It may be reproduced and reprinted provided the author’s information including web link is kept intact.

Travel Writing: How to Make Money Blogging About Your Travels

By Ezday On April 8, 2009 No Comments

Money For Traveling asked:


They never wanted to travel the world and make money for the cost of your adventures with the world? Using the Web and a simple blog, this couldn & rsquo, t? pi? easy. There are just a few simple techniques, but hidden in the manufacture of healthy income for blogging about your races. In fact, the number of travelers who do not take the underground works, however, makes the cash for writing about their & nbsp; races is growing by the day. We keep our mouths shut about our techniques and visit destinations all over the world and get paid to tell the world. I know there must be great people out of l? who deserve to travel and want the information, what? I & rsquo; the VE has decided to share some of our techniques: 1) & nbsp; & nbsp; Owning your blog. Places Gradica on Blogger, Myspace and Blogspot? good for our purposes, what are they? you can & rsquo; retouching t the place to make a profit easily. Instead, if you buy a domain for $ 10 and then installed WordPress, you now have the platform to make it extremely) the profitable.2 &, nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; Use PPC (pay-per-clicks) to get begun. You won & rsquo, t make a massive income out of this now, but you can easily make 5-10 U.S. dollars a day in the beginning. That can not? you sound like m? lto & hellip but it & rsquo;'s enough for one meal a day or a flight after a month and the number just to get your blog to develop more? large) in readership.3 &, nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; Collect the names and email address. You want to do this so that we can bring you your new readers to your blog. & The little people; lsquo; bookmark & rsquo; a place far from the most long, but if sent by electronic mail to your readers always post a new article, you coltiver? your reading) an exponential rate.4 &, nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; Offer subscriptions to RSS (formal real simple syndicate). Don & rsquo, t has left this intimidate. The setting of this up? simple as checking a box on your blog & rsquo; options s. RSS? another way for? keep your readers updated with your blog. Insead of you who sent in the mail, the RSS reader of choice automatically show? Their recently posted content. Pi? see your content, they improved the probability of &?; rsquo; ll click on the ad (and therefore, the best to you & Probability?; rsquo; the ll get) 5) & paid; nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; Sell a product that interesser? your readers. Once you are in service, vederete grow your reading as well. Now it & rsquo, s time to really monetize your site. Ci? ? where the sale of the subsidiary comes. Ci? simply taking a commission for the client sent to another product (since they buy the product). What?, Occasionally, make a blog post about the product you are promoting affiliate. When your readers see this, people? interested click on your & lsquo; affiliate link, & rsquo, and if they buy, you get paid. Easy as that. Enjoy the comfort of a branch? always free and there are thousands of products that begging the active branches. Incidentally, affiliate commissions are typically 50% – 75%. Giant, and many more) & profitable.6; nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; Create your own product. The only problem with the market introduction of the subsidiary? the product? completely out of your control and take only part of the cut. Once you have a bunch of blog posts, you can parcel together and make a & lsquo; ebook. & Rsquo; Sell this to your loyal readers and you & rsquo; the ll be? what surprised them the pay they met &; rsquo; king get for free anyway! There are bloggers out l? who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for writing about their passions. My instincts tell me you & rsquo, d? satisfied with a few hundred or thousand U.S. dollars extra a week, so the beginning that takes action in relation to these ideas. They & rsquo; re complicated, requiring just the action. The best part? Once they & rsquo; re development, can all be automated and can take place without your presence! ** Attention Readers ** get your copy of our free step-by-step guide that shows you how to make money as you travel without ever taking a & lsquo; work, & rsquo; http://www.moneyfortraveling.com call. The authors are experts in www.MoneyForTraveling.com all did a great internet income while traveling or? been recruited and paid well to travel the world and show how to do the same. ** Editors of electronic publication of attention / site owners ** Feel free to reprint this article in its totalitate? in your electronic publication or on your site finch? leave all links in place. You can not edit the contents and must include our resource box as listed above. However, you can sign up as a subsidiary MoneyForTraveling.com and insert your affiliate links to earn income for your efforts.

Auto Insurance Mistakes Oklahoma

By Ezday On April 8, 2009 No Comments

If you can’t get an auto insurance, you can call the Automobile Insurance Plan in Oklahoma. The Automobile Plan in Oklahoma was created in 1955 to help provide auto insurance to those motorists and transport owners who can’t get an auto insurance using other means.

Uninsured driver.

One thing you can add to auto insurance policy is uninsured driver scope. While not needed by law, this auto insurance rider will help you and whole your family, and anyone who sits in your car .

There are some transport policies which will help you if you are have damages in an accident that wasn’t your fault.

The Lapsed auto insurance.

If your auto drives bad, it is reasonable to maintain your auto insurance. If you don’t see that the policy to lapse, you could finish up purchasing a highest resard when the auto becomes operable.

Some mistakes in auto insurance scope could result that rate is increase, regardless of the any cause for the lapse. Ask your auto insurance agent if your list allows for a decrease rate while your transport is doesn’t work correctly.

You must know, if your auto insurance in Oklahoma is stoped within 180 days from the starting of new policy, the auto insurance company is needed to tell the Department of Safety in Oklahoma. That Department will connect with you (or the stoped policy owner) using the address on file and ask check of the new auto insurance scope. You (or it can be policy owner) must answer within 40 days having the proof of the new scope or your auto registration and motorist license will suspended. That’s why it is very significant to keep your address information and auto insurance connecting with the Department. If you don’t, your auto license can be stopped without your interposition and that is a bad thing!



By: Eden Ali

About the Author:

How to Use Twitter for Marketing

By Ezday On April 4, 2009 No Comments

Darren Olander asked:


s a relatively new web 2.0 site that is starting to gain a lot of popularity. That means that a lot of people have heard of it but it is also quite common to run into people who haven’t heard of it.. yet. Twitter.com is this social site that encourages users to post often about what they are currently doing.

A lot of people are using it to improve their marketing reach, by being an active twitterer they gain followers who are interested in what they got going on. This means people being exposed to their updates on a regular basis. For example, if you have hundreds of followers in Twitter and you decide to post an affiliate link, that means that hundreds of people have instantly been exposed to your offer. In this article I will discuss ways to maximize Twitter for your marketing, and also a big mistake to be aware of.

In order to have a fan base per say of followers in Twitter you must be able to keep their interest in you and what you are doing now. “What are you doing?” is the whole foundation of what Twitter is about in the first place. Make sure to post daily if not several times throughout the day updates about what you are doing. The magical thing behind this is that many of your contacts will be able to feel like they know you so much better, will trust you more, and feel much more comfortable about working with you. On the other hand, when you follow others you can learn about them and their possible needs.

The big mistake to watch out for is only posting affiliate links or offers on your Twitter page. This looks like Spam and many people will see you as just abusing Twitter for your own personal gain. Think of it this way, if you would not want to invite your friends or family to keep up with you via Twitter then you are going about it all wrong. As with anything you send out or provide, ninety percent should be content and ten percent (at most) advertising. So this concept is quite simple… constantly post throughout the day what you are doing.. it is usually very simple and only takes a few seconds to post! Secondly, if you write articles or provide content online, provide a link for those in your Twitter posts. You may post many things within one day, but the last thing you post for the day is usually the most important because it will be there the longest. This means that your last post for the day should very well contain a link that you want your followers to see before your start Twittering again the next day!

Another part of Twitter is contributing. As with any social site it should be a give and take relationship. Notice that give comes first… the more you give the more people will want to work with you and the more attention you will receive. Make sure to read and follow other users in Twitter. If you read something interesting or helpful then make sure to reply and say so, or even put a link for it on your Twitter so that you are directing others to more quality content. This can also be as simple as connecting with other users, if they know you are reading their Twitter page they will be much more likely to check out what you have going on too.

To get started in Twitter you should first invite contacts who aren’t using Twitter and also find contacts who are already using Twitter so that you can start following them and also start getting people to follow you. Twitter has a nice invite and find feature that makes this incredibly easy. To grow your reach even more you can start following people who follow or are followed by the people who follow you.. or that you follow. You might need to read that sentence again.. but basically you can find other users to connect with that are already connected to other users.

Now for a big tip. If you really want to maximize the potential with Twitter, you should make sure to take advantage of any plug-ins or sites that support Twitter. Here are three, but I’m sure there will be many more in the future if not already. Squidoo allows you to input your Twitter account info into your Squidoo account and then it can automatically post updates to your Twitter account when you create or update Squidoo lenses. Facebook has an application called Twitter, it automatically updates your Facebook status when you make a Twitter post. The other tool is a free WordPress plug-in called TweetMyBlog that allows you to create a two-way connection from your blogs to Twitter. TweetMyBlog allows you to use a widget on your WordPress blogs that will display your current Twitter feed.. that way all visitors to your blog can look at the widget and see a running feed of your latest Twitter posts. If they click on that they will be brought to your Twitter page. In addition, when you make a new post to your blog, TweetMyBlog will automatically make a post to your Twitter page with a link to your latest blog post. Imagine the extra exposure you can receive by using these tools that help people see more of what you are doing.

Lastly, have fun! Twitter is a social site… so interact and enjoy!

Statins (Rosuvastatin) And Their Use Among People With Normal “Bad” Cholesterol (LDL) Levels

By Ezday On March 15, 2009 No Comments

Statins, also known as HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, are a class of drugs that reduce the level of “bad” cholesterol in your blood known as low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c). Statin therapy has been approved for patients who have been diagnosed with vascular disease, diabetes, or who have an increased level of cholesterol in their blood (hyperlipidemia). However, nearly 50% of all heart attacks (myocardial infarctions) occur in individuals with levels of LDL-c (bad cholesterol) are low enough that they would not be required to even take a statin medication.

Because of the high number of individuals who have heart attacks without elevated levels of cholesterol, the JUPITER (Justification for the Use of Statins in Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin) trial was conducted. The JUPITER trial, a paper published in the November 2008 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, wanted to see if patients without increased levels of “bad” cholesterol (LDL-C) would benefit from the use of statins. The authors decided to use high sensitivity C-reactive protein (an inflammatory biomarker that can predict cardiovascular events) as the variable which could determine patient outcome.

The study was conducted on men 50 years of age or older and women 60 years of age or older who had a LDL cholesterol level of less than 130 mg per deciliter, a high sensitivity C-reactive protein level of 2.0 mg per liter or greater, and no history of cardiovascular disease. The authors believed that even healthy people with levels of LDL cholesterol below current treatment thresholds but with elevated levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein might benefit from statin therapy. The experimental group received 20 mg of rosuvastatin and the control group received a placebo. Patients were followed for approximately 2 years.

The study found patients on rosuvastatin (marketed by AstraZeneca under the name Crestor) had a significant reduction in the incidence of major cardiovascular events when compared to the placebo group. The study also demonstrated reductions in cadiovascular events for women and black and hispanic populations who took rosuvastatin when compared to placebo. Incidence of myopathy, hepatic injury, and cancer occurred less frequently within the rosuvastatin group than with placebo. The rosuvastatin group experienced a reduction in LDL cholesterol levels by 50% and a reduction in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels by 37%.

Whether or not patients with normal levels of LDL-cholesterol but increased levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein should be placed on statin thereapy remains uncertain. The question also remains whether or not physicians should be screening individuals for elevated levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. Clearly, patients with normal levels of LDL-cholesterol and increased levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein benefit from statin therapy. However, the JUPITER trial did not address if statin therapy was beneficial in patients with both normal LDL-cholesterol and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels. This group of patients should be evaluated before all “healthy” patients at an increased age should be placed on statin therapy. For more information regarding critique of the JUPITER trial can be found in the January 2009 issue of the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.

Though the benefits discovered in the JUPITER trial were exciting, the long term effects of taking statins in individuals with normal levels of LDL-c are not known. Currently, some physicians are prescribing statins, specifically rosuvastatin (Crestor), in patients over the age of fifty who do not have increased levels of “bad” cholesterol. Nonetheless, all patients should continue to lead a life of exercise and maintain a balanced diet in order to keep LDL-cholesterol and total cholesterol at or below normal levels.

You can read more opinion on medical research at my Health for Self Newsletter