Statins?

It’s not my job to tell you what drugs to take or not to take.  It’s my job to clear any interference to your body running correctly.  Interference on the nervous system specifically.  When you body runs correctly, you don’t need drugs.

That said, drugs generally interfere with the function of your body.  Knowing this, it’s also necessary to give people the tools to make these decisions wisely for themselves and their families. So, you DO hear about drugs here. But you must decide for yourself.

Today’s question I got was on statins. (Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor etc...)  Again, I’m not going to tell you or anyone not to take statins, but if you knew what I know, you might think differently about this seemingly universal recommendation being doled out because cholesterol is high. 

So, let’s start with why people take statins.  You don’t want to be dead of a heart attack.  That’s a good reason. But fundamentally you don’t want to be dead.  When you look at the body of research, people who take statins die at a higher rate from “all cause mortality”.  In other words, most people die sooner because they are taking statins.  Less die of heart attacks as the drug company’s sales brochure touts, but they are just as dead.  And again, you really are trying not to be dead. That fact has been known for decades.  Published in Nature Magazine back in the 1990s.  It is still true today.

That said, you will need more information to evaluate your individual risk.  For instance, if you have stents or artificial valves, or actual high cholesterol due to a gene that processes cholesterol missing (true genetic high cholesterol would be north of 400)…. That changes the math ( in favor of the statin).  Everyone else with cholesterol on the north side of 200 would be wise to consider the risk benefit analysis of using statins to lower their cholesterol rather than lifestyle modification. As I said, there's more dead with statin corrected cholesterol than those running around uncorrected. And, you just don't want to be counted in the dead pile.

What is high cholesterol?  The goal posts have been moved repeatedly.  It used to be over 300.  When I was a student in the 1990s it was 240.  Now it’s 200.  This results in about 34% of the adult population getting recommendations to use statins.  Also 7% of children. Meanwhile, true genetic high cholesterol is 0.4% of the population, max. The other 99.6% of us can do something about it with no medication at all.

While it’s true that heart disease and cancer are the number 1 and 2 disease causes of death in the US, getting a “permission slip” (prescription medication) to keep living the same way that caused the prescription, isn’t going to matter.

But, it’s true that lower cholesterol IS better for you.  It’s not necessarily true that artificially lowering cholesterol with a statin is better for you.  For sure, lowering your cholesterol naturally is better for you.

So, lets examine the cause of high cholesterol.  This is terribly misunderstood. It’s not eating cholesterol.  Your liver makes it. Eating cholesterol in eggs or meat doesn’t change it that much. It does so to help you repair damaged caused by inflammation and sugar.  So, if your cholesterol is high, understand that is like taking your temperature. It's going to give you information about how the system is running. The fever is not the problem, it's the indicator. The cholesterol is not the problem, it's the indicator that you are eating an inflammatory diet.  And THAT is the problem, not the cholesterol.  The cholesterol is protecting you from yourself. 

Your body is wonderfully made and knows what to do to protect you. If you have high cholesterol, it's because you eat too much that turns to sugar and you don't exercise enough. Your body doesn’t make mistakes just manufacturing cholesterol to kill you. 

Medicine however, is fond of the notion that your body does crazy stuff that needs medication to stop it from doing.  In chiropractic, we acknowledge the superior and correct philosophy that your body heals itself and is doing so all the time.

Your liver makes cholesterol and raises the amount of cholesterol in your blood because you are eating things that raise your blood sugar.  That’s sugar, grains, starches, fruits, candy, donuts etc….  Not bacon and eggs.   A better tool for monitoring your diet than cholesterol is hemoglobin A1c.   Keeping A1c around 6 or lower is ideal.  If you do that, your cholesterol will stay healthy.

A1c measures sugar that is bound to hemoglobin.  When there’s sugar around all the time, the amount stuck to hemoglobin goes up. It’s an average over time.  You can measure high blood sugar or low blood sugar on any given day but that doesn’t tell you what you are doing over time.  A1c is a better indicator of your diet with respect to sugar and inflammation.

So, if that’s high, your cholesterol will go up to protect you from all the sugar you’re eating.  Using a statin to take away your body’s safeguard doesn’t make you healthier or your diet any better. 

If your cholesterol is high and is below 400, It’s not genetic.  If your parents had high cholesterol and heart disease, THEY weren’t eating healthy and you learned and are eating what you were taught.  

There IS a genetic version of high cholesterol.  We have two genes that create enzymes to break down cholesterol.  If you were born missing one of those genes, your cholesterol will be near 400 no matter HOW you eat.  If you’re missing both genes, your cholesterol will be near 800 no matter HOW you eat.  Those situations require careful consideration of medication and even natural tools to lower cholesterol because the health complications of even a sprained ankle can disable a person for months.  I’ve seen exactly 2 cases of familial hypercholesterolemia in my 33 year career.  That’s not what this addresses. And those are not 34% of the adult population.

There’s also not an adjustment for high cholesterol. We simply have to eat what we are designed to eat and fuel our bodies rather than what’s in the snack aisle in the grocery store.

Search engine for finding this information is not Google or even Duckduckgo.com (though, that protects your privacy, it still just uses google style MSM sanction algorithms).  Freespoke.com is what I use looking for the truth in health information.   I use google looking for a restaurant or when Elvis died.  Health information in the media is very controlled and most outlets are dependent on Pharm for their paychecks.  This is Google, CBS, NBC, CNN, Time Magazine etc….  To get to the truth, because Pharm does their best to hide it, you need bias free search tools. 

Lastly, an anecdote to illustrate why this information is hard to come by.  Way back in the 1990s I knew a gentleman, who I’ll not name because what I’m sharing could cost him much money.   He was a researcher who immigrated here from Africa and he and his family lived in Oakdale, his kids went to Tartan.  He shared he had worked on statin research to see if it would improve dementia in elderly.  Way back then it was thought that dementia and Alzheimer's were perhaps circulatory disorders, like that suffered by the heart.   The project he was working on showed that the statins not only did not help, they actually accelerated dementia. 

The results of the research are owned by the drug company.  They do not have to publish the bad news and they didn’t.  The researchers can’t publish it either because when they are hired, they sign non disclosure agreements with severe financial penalties for breaking the agreement for working on their marketing... I mean research.  That was almost 30 years ago.  You’ve still never heard of it.  That’s how ALL drug research works too.

If you search today, you’ll find a 2021 paper funded by the drug industry, that used a study of people using aspirin (no longer recommended either) to dispel any notion of dementia and statins.  It notes in a 5 year follow up of people in that aspirin trial, that those using statins had no more or less cognitive problems that those taking just aspirin.  Not exactly what would pass for research as the group has other factors.  For instance, it’s possible that aspirin “erases” the cognitive effect.  But, that’s not the point of these kinds of published papers. They are done to protect the industry.  The journal was The American College of Cardiology.  Most journals are funded by the drug industry.  Just sayin’….  The drug industry funding the wing of the cardiology department in your city is also supplying the cardiologists with statins, antihypertensives, triglyceride and diabetes medications.   So, they must work together to be successful in business.

Summary: Your body does what’s best for you. Medications are for crisis.  High cholesterol is an indicator of your diet and lifestyle.  That can cause a crisis for sure.  But solutions are lifestyle.  Unless you have had a heart attack already, have synthetic things like stents and valves, or truly have familial hypercholesterolemia (over 400), you will be more likely to die if you use statins than if you simply run around with uncorrected cholesterol.

Blessings.

Dr. B.