ARE STATINS IN YOUR FUTURE?

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ARE  STATINS IN YOUR FUTURE?

Claim that high cholesterol causes heart disease are not substantiated.  Statins, a commonly prescribed class of lipid-lowering drugs are overused and misused.  

STATINS  are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the United States,  prescribed to 13 million Americans, and creating a $20 billion market in this country alone. There is an estimated 25 million users worldwide.

This is good for doctors and drug companies, but bad for you, causing a wide range of serious side effects that need more drug treatment. 

Reducing a very high cholesterol level is very important to prevent health risks.   Obesity,, smoking, diabetes,, and stress can all cause high cholesterol.  You are told to focus too heavily on blood cholesterol levels, instead of  looking at the effects these drugs cause to your the whole body.

HOW STATINS WORK

Statins, described as cholesterol-busting wonder drugs, reduce the amount of cholesterol in the body by blocking an enzyme that makes bad cholesterol.  Statins do indeed ,very effectively, block the production of cholesterol.  If you have heart disease, or are  at risk from heart disease, you are usually prescribed statins.   But there is a problem. 

 YOU NEED CHOLESTEROL

Cholesterol is not the cause of your heart disease.   On the contrary, cholesterol is good for you. You need cholesterol for your cell membranes, your sex hormones, and your bile salts and for the production of your Vitamin D.   It is necessary for proper neurological function and protects you against cancer and premature aging.   Feeling good is ironically a symptom of high cholesterol levels.

Cholesterol is actually a healing agent for your body. Where there is an injury to the body, cholesterol will increase in that area to aid in the healing.  It acts both a patchwork and as a precursor for hormones that play a role in the healing.   High blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, and even bypass operations, can cause trauma and inflammation to your arteries that raise your risk of  heart disease.

Damage to your arterial linings leads to inflammation.   In response, cholesterol floods the area and lies down as a “patchwork” over the injured area.  The problem is that if the source of inflammation is not removed, the cholesterol  keeps on  depositing as it tries to heal the injured area.

The body uses cholesterol to repair all damaged tissue.   Scar tissue contains high levels of cholesterol, including scar tissue in your arteries.  Cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D, needed for many biochemical processes including mineral absorption

Cholesterol is also a powerful antioxidant, which protects you against cancer, aging, and disease.  It is vital for proper brain function,  playing an important role in the formation of memory and the uptake of hormones in the brain, including serotonins (the body’s feel-good chemical).  The  serotonin receptors do not work properly, when cholesterol levels drop too low

Low cholesterol disrupts the production of adrenal hormones, leading to blood sugar problems, edema, mineral deficiencies, chronic inflammation, difficulty in healing, allergies, asthma, reduced sex drive, infertility and other reproductive processes.

Visit my recent blog of May 23: Cholesterol:  How low is too low?  www.drneedles.com

LIFE EXPENCTANCY

There is no proof that your taking statin drugs will help you live longer.  Statin drugs do not prevent cancer,  Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, nor colorectal and breast cancers.  

While they do lower the risk of heart attacks and strokes, in people already at risk because of heart disease or high cholesterol,  the routine use of such drugs by otherwise healthy adults as you,  produces no real benefits.

NATURAL WAYS TO LOWER CHOLESTEROL

There are  many natural ways to reduce cholesterol, heart disease and inflammation: fish oils, psyllium and other natural fibers, and potentially the addition of spices such as curcumin, ginger, Coenzyme Q10, and Vitamin C.

HEART THERAPY (THE PAULING VIT C  THEORY)

Every  part of your body is constantly undergoing decay, repair, and replacement.  To repair and replace your tissues properly, your body must make a binding protein called “collagen”.  To form collagen and keep your artery walls healthy,  you need large amounts of vitamin C.

With insufficient vitamin C,  lipoprotein is attracted to the lesions, forming sticky clots (arterial plaques).  These plaques grow in size, eventually blocking smaller heart  and brain arteries, resulting in a heart attack or a stroke.

Cholesterol, a basic building block in the bloodstream, is regulated by being constantly recycled/converted to bile and excreted through the bowels. You need a lot of  vitamin  C  for this conversion to take place.    Without enough vitamin C, excess cholesterol and lipoprotein(a) will build up in your bloodstream.

Cardiovascular disease is a symptom of long-term low-level vitamin C deficiency.   Not enough Vitamin C is present to form collagen to repair your arterial walls.   Plaques of lipoproteins then form  in the walls of your coronary arteries.  These plaques grow in size until the blood flow is cut off  an artery, causing angina, arrhythmia, a heart attack or a stroke).

NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCY

The idea, according to Linus Pauling,  is that heart disease is due to a simple nutritional deficiency and that a simple regimen of inexpensive nutrients and very low-level exercise can get to these nutrients.   This theory was and still is very threatening to a medical system geared to—and even economically dependent on—invasive medical procedures and expensive prescription drugs.

The answer to prevent heart disease  is clear.    Have enough vitamin  C in your bloodstream. This  means consuming between 2 and 20 grams of vitamin C per day—30-300 times the adult RDA—depending on general health, level of stress. 

GRAPEFRUIT  decreases cholesterol blood levels and increases the body's absorption of statins.   Because grapefruit contains a chemical that inactivates a liver enzyme involved in drug metabolism., too high a level of statins in the blood can lead to serious muscle damage.  So don’t eat grapefruit if you are taking statins.

HOW STATINS WORK

Statins are referred to as HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors and are designed to slow down your body’s production of cholesterol.

NO INCREASE IN SURVIVAL WITH STATINS

Statins have been shown to reduce death from heart and cerebrovascular disease if  who already have these conditions,   But statins do not benefit you if you don’t have cardiovascular disease.

NEEDED SUPPLEMENTS WHEN ON STATINS

If you are taking  statins,  may need to take a CoQ10 supplement to counteract the myopathy that occurs from statin drug use.   (30 or 50 mg of CoQ10 two or three days a week).

BRAIN SIDE EFFECT

Statin users often have memory loss, as inability to recall common words , forgetting names of close friends and phone numbers, loosing a train of thought during mid sentence, walking into a room and forgetting why you are there, losing car key, sunglasses, wallet, or purse.   Since cholesterol is used by the body to make the sex steroids, men who take statins have lower testosterone and may look for Viagra aid.

OTHER  STATIN SIDE EFFECTS

Dizziness Cognitive decline, depression. irritability,  muscle pain and wasting/weakness, extreme fatigue, coordination problems,  liver damage, peripheral  nerve damage, emotional flat lining with a loss of zest for life!

Coenzyme Q10 is depleted, weakening the  heart, cataracts develop, immune system is weakened, reduces left ventricular function, include damage to muscle tissue, harm to kidneys, elevated liver function tests, constipation,

It is quite possible that a statin drug can reduce cholesterol levels, reduce CRP levels, reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, yet lead to a shorter lifespan.    How could this happen, you ask?  This could be due to muscle damage resulting in less exercise, higher rate of dementia, suicides due to depression, prostate cancer, and liver and kidney damage.

SHOULD YOU TAKE STATINS?

If your   HDL is below 40 mg/dL or if the ratio between "bad" (LDL) cholesterol and HDL is greater than 3.3, statins might be indicated.   With higher HDL levels, there is no advantage in taking statins. therapy.   If the diet and natural supplements mentioned have not been successful in lowering very high cholesterol levels, statins are for you

INFLAMMATION AND  NSAIDS

Why have studies consistently shown increased mortality with decreased cholesterol levels?   Inflammatory prostaglandins dilate blood vessels and increase oxygen and nutrients to promote healing. Prostaglandins are formed from cholesterol.  With lack of cholesterol, less  prostaglandin is formed, and there is less blood flow to the organs.   If the blood supply is already compromised to the heart and brain, a heart attack or stroke can occur.   Since NSAIDs  block prostaglandins, there is less blood flow to a compromised  heart, brain, or other organ.

COMMENTARY

Drug companies, doctors,  and for-profit hospitals have hundreds of billions of dollars at stake in investment and future revenues in conventional heart and vascular therapy.

Claim that high cholesterol causes heart disease are not substantiated.   Several studies have confirmed that as cholesterol levels go down that the mortality rate goes up, primarily from increased heart attacks and strokes.   There certainly now is no proof that a 1000 or 2000 dollar a year statin drug will help you nor improve your lifespan and quality of life.  Taking statins often leaves the impression that you don’t need to do anything else to lower your cholesterol.

As the recent TV ads say:  ‘ I leave my heart now to Lipitor’ and I might add:  "my libido to Viagra". 

Visit www.drneedles.com for more commentary blogs on medical controversial subjects.  Your comments are always appreciated.

SOURCES:  Diabetes Care. 2009;32:541–546 www.ashnow.com/vaclib  or call The Idaho Observer at 208-255-2307./  November 27, 2008 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, /dr needles medical blog, May 23, 2009 www.drneedles.com

1991, Pauling and Matthias Rath published their groundbreaking paper - "Solution to the Puzzle of Human Cardiovascular Disease: Its Primary Cause is Ascorbate Deficiency Leading to the Deposition of Lipoprotein(a) and Fibrinogen/Fibrin in the Vascular Wall."