I came across an article in a newspaper which sang the praises about a new study that showed statins can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease by two thirds.
Let's be clear on this: That's just nonsense! These findings are based on one single study, while the opposite has been proven time and again by numerous studies in the past.
In 2012 the American FDA changed the safety information on statin labels to warn patients that these drugs can cause memory loss and cognitive decline. For this organisation who are in the pockets of Big Pharma, to take these measures is a damning indictment.
Back in 2009, two well-designed studies, which involved over 26,000 people, were conducted; treatment with statins was not found to benefit brain function and that lowering cholesterol levels may actually impair brain functioning, because of the important role that it plays in the functioning of synapses, tiny gaps between cells which allow nerves to communicate with each other.
Cholesterol is very concentrated in the brain and plays a critical role in the production of key hormones, vitamin D (arguably our key vitamin) and cell membranes. In fact, you can't live without cholesterol; a wax like, fatty substance that's essential for good health.
Lowered cholesterol levels seem likely to be linked to higher rates of early death, suicide, aggressive and violent behaviour, personality disorders, and possibly depression, dementia and penal confinement among young males.
Just how effective is cholesterol control? We know that low fat diets that reduce cholesterol levels are ineffective for the purposes of prevention of heart attacks or stroke and also for reducing the risk of death.
Also, even when drugs get used, the results are far from impressive for most people. For example, if we take a group of individuals with no prior history of cardiovascular disease and treat them with a statin for 5 years, 98% of them stand to gain no benefit; but a significant number (up to 20%) will have potentially debilitating side effects such as fatigue, muscle pain, liver damage, kidney damage or diabetes. In short, for many people, statins just don't make sense.
The statin drugs doctors prescribe to lower cholesterol don't do anything at all to balance the HDL to LDL ratio. Statin drugs act by blocking the enzyme your liver needs to produce cholesterol and this limits the total amount your liver can create. As a result, these dangerous drugs can artificially cause your cholesterol level to fall too low.
Professor Sarah Harper, director of Oxford University's Institute of Population Ageing, says that "the country's love affair with medicine means that we choose to pop pills rather than follow a healthy lifestyle."
Bravely, she challenges the belief that statins are the Holy Grail. "Patients want pills and doctors want to prescribe them. The pharmaceutical industry fulfils a perceived need, as well as trying to create one."
"We fear for our future health but we do little to promote it." As Professor Harper says, "we prefer to pop pills. There is a simple reason for this; neither doctors nor patients want or sometimes even know of other alternatives".
"If we are reluctant to take responsibility for ourselves if we are physically and mentally able to do so, we run the risk of being hooked on the largesse of the government, the common sense and concern of doctors and the benign efficacy of pharmaceutical products. I don't want that for myself or for people who ask for my help, I don't trust it."
Statin drugs are a sweetheart alright, a £14 billion a year industry sweetheart that is! Not only are they the best-selling drug class out there, but they provide an almost endless list of side effects that assure the hapless taker a lifetime of expensive medical treatment. Statins are a Big Pharma dream come true!
Statin drugs were brought in with fanfare and a hero's parade because they were purported to heal the nations of the evil causes of cardiovascular disease. However, a study analysis reported in the 'Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine' last year concluded that even in spite of a huge rise in statin drug use, the number of people having heart attacks simply has not decreased at all, but rather has risen. Did you know that 50% of all heart attacks today are in people with normal cholesterol?
Cholesterol is only a marker and not even the cause of the problem here.
Peter H. Langsjoen, considered one of the foremost experts in using CoQ10 to treat cardiac disease, has said, "We are now in a position to witness the unfolding of the greatest medical tragedy of all time; never before in history has the medical establishment knowingly created a life threatening nutrient deficiency in millions of otherwise healthy people".
He is of course talking about coenzyme Q10, a critical heart nutrient and its severe depletion due to statins.
High cholesterol is a warning to you to control inflammation. Inflammation in the body generates C-reactive protein, which in turn causes the body to respond with soothing, repairing and life-saving cholesterol. C-reactive protein is a measure of the body's history of inflammation and a far better predictor of heart attacks than cholesterol levels. In terms of natural solutions to reducing inflammation markers in the body, vitamin C and fish oil will reduce C-reactive protein more than statins ever will.
You can download a free introduction of my new e-book at www.thefatlosspuzzle.com