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  • New Warnings about Statins

    There are three things wrong about statins:

    • the purpose of statins is to reduce cholesterol, when cholesterol (even LDL cholesterol) is not only good for us, but vital for our health;
    • statins have the potential for serious side-effects; and
    • they cost a huge amount of money.

    If you scroll back through the Blogs on this site you will see that we have been warning against Statin use and “the cholesterol myth” for many years.   In more recent Blogs you will find evidence that reality about saturated fat, statins and cholesterol is beginning to dawn.   It is not cholesterol that causes illness, but the oxidization of cholesterol.   Oxidization is not caused by fats, or proteins, but by sugar, sweeteners, processed food (pasta turns to sugar in the body), endurance exercise, air pollution, stress, smoking, excessive drinking and much else that we really know is bad for us.

    One commonly prescribed statin is Rosuvastin.   According to “The Times” of 18th March, 2015, there are 1.8 million prescriptions of this one statin a year in England alone, costing £45.6 million.  There may be a few people, whose health condition requires statin treatment, but for most it is a pointless and risky treatment.   Now joining those reported in earlier Blogs is Sidney Wolfe, senior adviser on health research at the US advocacy group “Public Citizen”, who writing in the BMJ warns of the increased risk of type 2 diabetes: “There is increasing evidence that the drug also carries a higher risk of adverse effects” including diabetes, muscle damage and kidney problems.   The success of Rosuvastin is attributed to marketing, the marketing of which (AstraZeneca’s brand name “Crestor”) as far back as 2003 was described in the “Lancet” as being pushed “too hard and too fast.”

    In 2002 Professor John P. Cooke, one of America’s leading heart specialists, wrote, “Cholesterol itself is not bad.  In fact, it is essential for life.   Cholesterol is a building block for all cell membranes.  It is also the precursor for sex hormones and other steroids that our bodies manufacture.   It is only when cholesterol becomes oxidized that trouble begins.” (“The Cardiovascular Cure”, page 38).   Research in 1992 established research that in terms of overall mortality lowering cholesterol worsens your prospects (e.g. Hacobs et al, “Circulation” 1992;86:1046-1060.   Statins are shown to reduce/block co-enzyme Q10 and the redoubtable Dr Mercola links low cholesterol with violent behavior and aggression, depression, suicide, cancer, Parkinson’s disease an loss of heart elasticity.

    So we should not be compromising our health with cholesterol lowering drugs, but addressing oxidization of cholesterol in our veins and arteries (all 100,000 miles).Patients with the highest levels of antioxidants in their bodies have the lowest incidence of coronary heart disease (Ross, “Atherosclerosis: An inflammatory disease”, New England Journal of Medicine, 340 (1999), 115-123 and please see Steinberg, “Antioxidants in the prevention of human artherosclerosis”, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute workshop: September 5-6, 1991).   Few antioxidants, unlike statins, carry any side-effects (a huge excess of vitamin C can make you rush to the lavatory).   Antioxidant supplementation is essential for us all: including vitamins A, C and E, coenzyme Q10 and L-arginine.   As you will guess, I particularly favour L-arginine.  For more information please go to the ADNO page on this site.

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