sideeffectsWhen a person has a serious underlying problem – with inflammation, for example – he or she may experience elevated cholesterol. Unresolved inflammation has long been associated with cardiovascular (heart) disease.

These two pieces of information describe how cholesterol can be associated with cardiovascular disease. However, it is a leap of judgment to conclude that the cholesterol is the cause of a serious disease. More accurate is the observation that elevated cholesterol is a sort of gauge, or meter that tells us that there is something wrong. That “something” may be causing the cholesterol to rise, but it is also doing something else – causing damage to the cardiovascular system.Using a drug to lower cholesterol levels is similar to placing a cover over the numbers on a bathroom scale. The cover bears a picture of the dial with the weight registering at 120 pounds. Regardless of how heavy you may be, using that bathroom scale will report that you weigh 120 pounds.Taking a drug to lower cholesterol does not resolve the underlying cause of the elevated cholesterol or heart disease any more than a false dial face reports your weight at 120 pounds when you use the “doctored” scale. To make matters worse, the drug – usually a statin – is not at all harmless. There are numerous side effects associated with these drugs, and some of them can even be fatal.Nevertheless, you might point out that these drugs are our only method for lowering cholesterol. The risks are worth taking if we can avoid serious disease.

This might be acceptable if the mere presence of cholesterol was proved as an actual cause of disease. It hasn’t. First, there are the side effects. Second, they are instilling a false sense of protection.
Even a recent study (called JUPITER, Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention) failed to demonstrate that the statins do anything positive or protective at all.

A follow-up study to JUPITER (below) reported that, “…there was a very low case-fatality rate of myocardial infarction, far from the expected number …” The risk of death from heart disease, with or without statins, was the same. The actual conclusion of the final study was, “The results of the trial do not support the use of statin treatment for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases …”

However, that conclusion has not stopped the sellers of statins. Drug manufacturers continue reporting the presumed benefits and suggest that “everyone” take statin drugs to prevent serious cardiovascular disease.

Abundant evidence shows that individuals with no previous CVD have numerous options in managing heart risk before being switched to cholesterol-lowering drugs. Moreover, while statins are often the drug of choice, they actually do little to affect triglyceride levels or HDL cholesterol, hallmarks of the growing claims about risk and heart disease.

If a person used available resources to reduce or eliminate underlying inflammatory disease, his/her cholesterol levels would fall into “normal” ranges. Can a person do this without drugs? Of course, but it takes some action on our part – the same action that is underlying all approaches to a truly healthy life.

These include eating well, drinking clean water, exercise, avoiding sugar and artificial sweeteners, limiting drug use, and taking helpful supplements.

Supplements are necessary for good health because it is increasingly difficult to eat nutritious food. For people with concerns about cardiovascular health, there are supplements that attack underlying inflammation, which results in lowered cholesterol. Cholesterol levels move toward normal because the body is operating in a healthy manner, not because some hormone-blocking drug (statin) is artificially changing levels.

Cholesterol lowering, cardiovascular diseases, and the rosuvastatin-JUPITER controversy: a critical reappraisal. de Lorgeril M, Salen P, Abramson J, Dodin S, Hamazaki T, Kostucki W, Okuyama H, Pavy B, Rabaeus M. Arch Intern Med. 2010 Jun 28;170(12):1032-6

Please read everything you can about Statins. I am extremely passionate about this topic and I’m standing up and yelling about it.
Here are links to every article or blog post I’ve made regarding the subject: