This has been a sore spot in my life for a long while and also see so much more dementia cases. The cholesterol fear is pushed on people so hard and the statins I believe are causing more and more dementia in so many. Our body needs cholesterol and our brains for sure. I believe so many have gotten to very low cholesterol levels and now dealing with memory loss. My parents lived to 91 and almost 95 and cholesterol was NEVER a word in their lives...they ate everything and had their minds when they died. Which came first .. did pharma invent the drugs or cholesterol first....
On this topic, my very favorite Integrative MD began testing my Homocystein some yrs ago and the levels were elevated so I went to work to lower those levels with OTC supplements on her advisement and online info. Homocystein could be the real culprit to heart issues with aging.
NNT 'medical' term I think for number needed to treat to have one person helped. At local heart doctor meeting a year or two ago, it was reported that the nnt for statins that most all the heart doctors give daily is sixty something, like sixty four or sixty seven. That means that for one person to benefit from a statin, that many have to be given the statin. The others are not helped, and it was not reported at the time how many were or are harmed even by taking just one, let alone taking daily for weeks, months or years. cholesterol has always been used in a healthy body, etc, naturally. It is needed. Studies in russia about a hundred years ago on mice or rats were used in the usa by drug users or manufacturers, or other money involved, to convince people that they had to have their cholest. monitored by the system of licensed doctors or health care system to avoid bad results. They entirely misrepresented everything about the russian study and did not tell people the truth about chol..... There is no money in the truth for those involved in making humongous profits via pharmakeia. . Other methods or items that could be used if 'allowed' instead of a statin with such low percentage of benefit could and/or did help everyone involved. Everyone.... with no side effects.
Homocysteine is a very good thing to monitor, and it is generally repaired with B vitamins. Is that what you are taking, @Joy Martin? Elevated homocysteine levels have been connected with heart disease and artery clogging since the 1950s, but has been disregarded since the drug companies don't make money from them. Cholesterol has also been a big deal since the 1950s, but no valid research has ever connected TOTAL cholesterol with heart disease in any form. It was thought that since arterial plaque contained cholesterol, it must be the culprit despite no real evidence to support the idea. UC San Diego did a study on eggs some years ago: the control group ate NO eggs for a period, one group ate 4 eggs daily for that period, and another group ate 8 eggs daily for the same period. At the end of the study, the mean cholesterol levels for each group was essentially the same. The study was designed to show that dietary cholesterol was bad. The study showed that it had no impact, at least in egg form. I don't think the study was ever repeated. Total cholesterol doesn't seem to have an impact on life expectancy. The same cannot be said for all forms of cholesterol, however. I have said here before that I am very anti-statin use except in a very select group who have a genetic issue. That group isn't large enough to make big profits for Pharma, however, so they have to push them on everyone.
This is a topic close to home because my mother was on statins due to VERY high cholesterol, and she developed dementia. I've been on them for a while and 3 years ago had the dosage doubled due to a presumed stroke...the higher doses of a specific statin is supposed to prevent sticky platelets. I've gone of of my statins and my cholesterol skyrocketed.
You may be one of those with a genetic condition. Aspirin or Plavix work better that statins to reduce sticky platelets. Believe or not, vitamin Chas been shown to do that as well in some studies.
After all the chemo treatments, my cholesterol has gone way up but the "ratio" (whatever that means) is still good. My oncologist said it was probably due to all the steroids I was given in the infusions. My PCP sent an Rx for generic Crestor which I picked up but have yet to take. I'm thinking once all the cancer treatment damage to my body is recovered things will settle down. I have resisted statins for over 20 years. It's hard to know what is the "best thing" to do sometimes.
Like everything else, @Beth Gallagher, it should be a personal decision. The ratio referred to generally is the Total cholesterol to HDL ratio. It has been used for years as a gauge to measure "Good" vs. "Bad" cholesterol. Do you get CRPs done? If you do, I would wait until the CRP is within "normal" range before I worried too much about cholesterol, but as I have mentioned before, statins were originally developed as anti-inflammatories, so they would help the CRP to come down. It is a personal choice that you have to gather the info and decide what is right for you. Good luck and I wish you the best.
I'm not familiar with CRPs so I guess I haven't had that done. My bloodwork is the usual metabolic panel, CBC, A1C, etc. Do you think it would be acceptable to take statins for a short time, then discontinue?
Sure. I have done that myself years ago. I took a low dose, saw no results, so I stopped. CRP is a measurement of inflammation and is done on blood. There are two types: CRP and hsCRP. CRP is for general inflammation and is used for arthritis, lupus, etc., while the hsCRP is used to evaluate cardiac risk. I think if you had it done, it would be the standard variety, but if you haven't had it, no big deal. Your values may settle down when the systemic inflammation settles down after all you've been through and statins are anti-inflammatory as I said before.
Grape Seed Extract, cleans and thins our blood. I've been taking it since 1995, non stop. Do research on this Don A. Also look at homocysteine levels......it's been mentioned here....Mine were elevated and I've worked to lower them.... Disclaimer is: if on a pharma blood thinner then can't take both.....
She simply asked about short-term stain use, not about grape seed extract, pycnogenol, or anything else. I am only against the long term use of statins among the general population with total cholesterol values below 300. I am not against grape seed extract and I don't know what you are comparing stains to grape seed for when it wasn't part of the question.