http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol/ https://www.ditchthecarbs.com/the-cholesterol-myth/ This has been a health subject that has plagued me for probably at least 10 yrs. My MD started testing me for homocysteine years back and they were elevated and so I've been taking supplements to get them into a good range .. The medical world has shocked the fear into the people to fear cholesterol and hence all the statins drugs pushed now and the damage from them..and I believe in many cases the cholesterol levels get TOO LOW. And maybe that is why more Memory Loss issues. My parents ate all fats and the word Cholesterol was never a word when I was growing up and not constant labs to "check" cholesterol....the both lived into 90's... Do your own research, I've been doing mine for as I said a good 10 yrs.
@Joy Martin you and I may disagree on many things, but I am totally in agreement with you on this. The video is a simplified explanation of why most people should not take statin drugs. The presentor points out that the "normal/reference range" for total serum cholesterol was randomly lowered (he said 225,as top, but prior to that, the top was 240 mg/dl) and they are now trying to make the ranges even lower. As he pointed out, low cholesterol, prior to statins was most frequently associated with serious diseases, most commonly colon cancer. Calcium is also found is atherosclerotic plaque, but no one recommends lowering serum calcium to 4 or 5 mg dl. Why?..because you would die. The side effects of artificially lower cholesterol are not as immediate, but are nevertheless severe. Prior to the introduction of statin drugs, rhabdomyolysis was a disease that was so rare that many doctors never saw a case. Since statins have been introduced, many docs see a case every few months. I haven't researched the association, but I suspect the statins reduce the healing power of the body because the pathway in the liver that statins use to reduce cholesterol production also is used to produce other things, such as CoQ 10, which is required for tissue repair. My cholesterol lowering regime that I proposed in college is: ) Sleep in the sun as much as possible to promote vitamin D production, thus using up cholesterol, 2) drink soluble water softener to precipitate bile salts in the intestine and thus stimulate the liver to produce more...and use more cholesterol, and 3) have sex as much as possible, promoting the production of steroid hormones, and again use up more cholesterol. My system is cheaper and more fun than statin drugs.
On pharma is making a killing on these statins that are causing so much damage...check it out folks...Damage from statins. I wonder which came first the intro of horrible cholesterol or the statin drugs...but maybe the wise pharma crowd did both at the same time. As I said my folks lived into 90's and until about 20+ yrs ago I never heard the word cholesterol. Then all the fearful thinking, what to do, blah blah blah... My total is about 200 and other lipids are good, but my doc hardly looks or talks about this topic. And when I read how happy people are at 160 total, I could gag. They are drying out and headed for memory issues if not there already.
@Joy Martin No scientific investigation has yet revealed conclusively that cholesterol intake has any effect on the long-term level of blood cholesterol. The human body produces cholesterol constantly, from within. Frank
Frank, I know our bodies make cholesterol and I've been researching and studying health issues so much and as far as science is concerned, it changes almost as much as I change my underwear. And most always who pays for the science funding. Thanks.
Very interesting video, @Holly Saunders. This doctor points out the muscle pain that I was talking about, and names a number of other side effects. Statins were originally developed as anti-inflammatory drugs and it was discovered that a side effect was that it lowered cholesterol. There are many anti-inflammatories on the market, but few things that will lower cholesterol as dramatically as statins, so it was decided that the "normals" for cholesterol should be lowered to levels difficult to attain without statins, and the population could then be treated for a disease that was invented by big pharma for a disease that didn't exist before the treament was developed. @Joy Martin mentioned homocysteine levels. That was noted by a famous at the time cardiac investigator (at Harvard I think) in the late 1960s. He noted that patients who had a high methionine to pyridoxine ratio were very likely to suffer an atherosclerotic heart attack. Pyridoxine (vitamin B6) is required by the body to metabolize methionine to cysteine as a usable amino acid. Those people with low pyridoxine intake could not completely metabolize methionine and the mid-product of the process was homocysteine, a somewhat toxic and very inflammatory substance. Little was done in mainstream medicine with this finding, as clinical laboratories didn't have a practical way to measure homocysteine, and the treatment for abnormal levels was an inexpensive B vitamin, so no profit could be made there. I suppose if the drug compnies could come up with a prescription substance that worked as well as simple pyridoxine, it would be used more often. They have managed to do that with vitamin A (Retinoids) and omega fatty acids.
I have been having the statins argument with my doctor(s) for years; they want to prescribe...I refuse. Interesting that my total lipid panel calculation (I can't remember what that calculation is called) is always within the normal acceptable range but because one factor is high, I "need" medication. Um, no thanks. I read a couple of years ago that heart disease is as prevalent in people with low cholesterol as with high, but those articles seem to have been suppressed and you really have to dig to find them.
I see only Integrative MD's and never fight them and their drugs, they never bring them up.....I work with 95% nutritional supplements.
Perhaps it is the C/H ratio you are referring to (Total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol ratio. That is what many docs use as an indicator, but big pharma has gotten into things once again and they have changed the standard of care. Many doctors are worried they will be sued if they don't push statins and the patient has a cardiac incident. As you said, there is little relationship between total cholesterol and cardiac infarction. There are some fractions of cholesterol that can be worrisome, but doctors seldom test for those, as they don't understand them themselves. Small dense cLDL. LDL is somewhat more relevant than total cholesterol, but the large buoyant forms don't seem to cause any issues.
Sorry that I missed this thread because I know just how important cholesterol is for health. The Drug industry and medical system started a war on cholesterol with quack science. Lead my a Dr Keys with his Mediterranean diet which was false because out of 20 countries he hand picked a few that gave him what he wanted and ignored ones that disproved his work. When the drug companies seen that they could make billions of dollars selling statin we were off to the races. The people who had the highest cholesterol in the world is the Inuit and have the lowest heart problem disproving all that they were saying. In 2012 The FDA put out warnings about statin because an large increase in dementia and diabetes connected to the drug but the doctor did not read the report. This phobia about cholesterol started in the 50s. what ailments started increasing in the 50s Alzheimer, diabetes and Erectile dysfunction all are liked to cholesterol deficiency or stations I live in a country that has more 100+ year old people by population than the US and one favorite food is Chicharron deep fried pig skin. 99% cholesterol
I did a lot of work with the Inuit (called Inupiat in Alaska) and the Yupik. All have very high cholesterol levels (if they are eating the native diet) but their HDL cholesterol is also astronomical--over 100 usually and sometimes over 150. They never have a heart attack if they are eating the traditional diet, but when they switch to the Western diet they have the same problems we do so there is no genetic factor, just diet and environment.
I read that same thing about China - the doctors there started seeing a brand "new" disease in the 60's .... they had never seen it before in China... it was heart disease, that started a few months after fast food places from the usa opened in China. More currently, at the beginning of this year in a meeting for doctors only at a huge hospital twelve miles away, the speaker put up on the board the statistics for statins - (all the doctors were heart doctors, and knew this part) it took 64 (or 84) patients to be given statins, according to the presenter in order for one of them to be benefited ... i.e. statistically only one in 64(or 84) people were helped by giving them statins for their heart.... but it was (and is?) still regular protocol for doctors to give statins... THEN a method was presented that helped everyone , i.e. 64 (or 84) out of 64 (or 84). It is not known how many if any of the doctors changed their prescribing habits, from or after that meeting. Others for the past few decades did not give statins either ever, or unless they thought there was nothing else better they could do. (many apparently gave statins because their job required it, no matter if it worked or not. similar to many other tests routinely done, and xrays too )