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Do Cholesterol-lowering Statin Drugs Really Work? Who Benefits? Who Has the Power to Cover Up the Side Effects?

For decades, the medical establishment in the U.S., Canada, and the UK has promoted statin drugs for an ever increasing population. Concomitantly, public health officials have advocated a low fat high carbohydrate diet, and the replacement of saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats. By following this regimen, the medical “authorities” claimed, will prevent heart disease. Nobel Prize winners Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Joseph Goldstein who discovered the central role that blood cholesterol played in the development of heart disease, prompted the pharmaceutical industry to develop statins. Although the scientists’ prediction that heart disease will have disappeared by the beginning of the 21st century, was decidedly wrong, the manufacturers of statins have profited beyond expectations – even though the drugs have not reduced heart disease. Like so many flawed, but widely recommended medical regimens, this one is not about improving public health. Independent physicians who are not industry lackeys agree that cardiovascular disease are likely to be preventable through modifying the diet by lower sugar and carbohydrates, increased exercise, and eliminating tobacco use. But healthy lifestyle regimens don’t generate billions of dollars!

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Dr. Brownstein: New Cholesterol-Lowering Medications Associated with 25% SEVERE Adverse Effects

Repatha is a new cholesterol-lowering medication that works differently from statins. It is part of an expensive class of medications that currently costs about $14,000 per year. When Repatha first came out I predicted that this class of drugs would (similarly to statins) fail and, furthermore, cause too many adverse effects. When we reviewed the article, we concluded Repatha was not very effective as it failed to help nearly 98% who took it. As we were about to finish our discussion, I said let’s look at the adverse effects from this drug. Adverse side effects were encountered by 77.4% of those treated with both Repatha and the placebo. As for serious side effects, 24.8% of the Repatha group and 24.7% of the placebo group suffered a serious adverse effect. We were both stunned. How could a therapy have such a high rate of adverse effects, especially serious adverse effects? And, how could a placebo have such a high rate of adverse and serious adverse events?

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Study: Statin Drugs Only Lower Cholesterol to Levels Advertised in Less Than 50% of Patients

Want to flip a coin on your health? Researchers assessing the effectiveness of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs found that they didn’t work for 51% of the 165,000 patients studied (statins have to reduce LDL cholesterol levels by 40% after two years to be considered effective). We’ve reported previously about the many side effects and dangers of taking statins. We’ve also pointed out that conventional thinking supporting statins—lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol as a means of preventing cardiovascular disease—is outdated. With one in four Americans over the age of 40 taking a statin, there are a lot of people out there spending money on a dangerous drug that is not providing any benefit. Will doctors change their prescribing practices based on this information? It doesn’t seem so. Statins make tens of billions of dollars a year for the drug industry, and the market is growing. Statin use among adults over the age of 40 increased almost 80% between 2002 and 2013.

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Low Cholesterol May Raise Your Alzheimer’s Risk

While cholesterol has been vilified as something that should be as low as possible to prevent heart disease, it's actually a crucial component for good health and too low a level can have serious repercussions for your health. Cholesterol is found not only in your bloodstream but also in every cell in your body, and is necessary for the production of cell membranes, virtually every steroid hormone, vitamin D and bile acids that help you digest fat. Cholesterol also plays an important role in the formation of memories and is vital for healthy neurological function. For example, low cholesterol levels have been shown to increase your risk of depression and suicide, in some cases rather dramatically. As noted by neurologist Dr. David Perlmutter, a quarter of all the cholesterol in your body is found in your brain, where it performs the function of an antioxidant. A number of studies have demonstrated that, contrary to popular belief, higher cholesterol levels are associated with better brain health. According to senior research scientist Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., insufficient fat and cholesterol in your brain play a crucial role in the Alzheimer's disease process, detailed in her 2009 paper "APOE-4: The Clue to Why Low Fat Diet and Statins May Cause Alzheimer’s."

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Drug Companies Upset Physicians are not Prescribing More Cholesterol-lowering Statin Drugs

Cholesterol is found in nearly every cell in your body. This waxy substance is vital for optimal functioning of cell membranes, regulating protein pathways and supporting brain health, hormone levels and reducing your heart disease risk. Your body also uses cholesterol to manufacture vitamin D after being exposed to the sun. As Zoe Harcombe, Ph.D., has noted, "It is virtually impossible to explain how vital cholesterol is to the human body. If you had no cholesterol in your body you would be dead." The majority of the cholesterol in your body, approximately 80%, is manufactured in your liver, suggesting your body cannot survive without it. In the past decades cholesterol has been vilified as a primary culprit in heart disease. Merck brought the first statin drug, Lovastatin, aka Mevacor, to market in 1987. Since then, statins have gone on to become the biggest selling class of pharmaceutical compounds of all time, with annual sales in excess of $19 billion in 2017 and projected to reach $24.4 by 2022.6,7 A new study from Duke University Medical Center finds 26.5% of U.S. adults who fit the current criteria to use cholesterol-lowering drugs are not taking them. The study is suggesting this occurs since doctors do not offer the drugs to their patients or the patients express concern over the side effects. Senior study author Dr. Ann Marie Navar from the Duke Clinical Research Institute believes public perception of side effects is unrealistic. However, despite Navar's attempt to downplay the side effects of statin medications, the risks are well-documented and supported by scientific evidence, so the fears are well-founded.

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Study: Cholesterol-Lowering Statin Drugs Associated with Increased Shingles Outbreaks

A recent meta-analysis review study looked into the association of cholesterol-lowering statin drug use with herpes zoster or shingles outbreaks, and determined there was a strong association of higher risk of shingles for older people who take statin drugs. Herpes zoster, more commonly known as shingles, is a painful skin irritation marked by rows of small sores with tiny blisters. It often strikes people over 50 who have experienced chickenpox during childhood. It’s suspected that this occurs when one’s cellular immune system is lowered enough to allow activating the dormant varicella virus (chicken pox) remaining after an earlier recovery from it. What may appear at first as non-threatening small skin lesions can become painful and more debilitating than chickenpox. This reactivated, more virulent form of varicella virus can damage nerves enough to develop into postherpetic neuralgia, which rephrased in layperson's language is "after herpes came intense nerve pain." Acute and chronic peripheral nerve pain may exist in the areas where the shingles skin lesions are located. The consequences can be lethal.

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Dispelling the Myth that LDL Cholesterol is “Bad”

Independently-sourced research challenges the idea that LDL (low-density lipoprotein) is the "bad cholesterol," and causes heart disease. However, the theory that LDL is "bad" persists in the mainstream media and with Big Pharma, mainly because they would lose billions of dollars in drugs and treatments to admit the theory lacks merit. The hypothesis of saturated fat creating artery-clogging cholesterol as the source of heart disease should be considered dead and incapable of resuscitating, based on the scientific evidence. But one still sees and hears fearful statements about lowering cholesterol and avoiding heart disease, mostly on mainstream media but even all too often on internet alternative media sources. Current research is showing LDL is not dangerous and it’s not an accurate marker for pending heart disease.

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Pharma Wants Every Senior on Statin Drugs as Corporate Media Seeks to Silence Doctors Exposing the Cholesterol Myth

Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are a $100 billion-a-year industry. Lipitor was, by far, the most profitable drug in the history of mankind among all pharmaceutical products, let alone being the most profitable cholesterol drug before its patent expired at the end of 2011. Sales to date from this one particular cholesterol-lowering statin drug have exceeded $140 billion. After Lipitor’s patent expired at the end of 2011, the FDA issued its first warnings against statin drugs, which include: liver injury, memory loss, diabetes, and muscle damage, among others. Thousands of lawsuits against the maker of Lipitor followed. As we have reported many times over the years here at Health Impact News, the cholesterol theory of heart disease is not well-supported by science at all. In fact, much of the science states that cholesterol is an important part of our health, and contrary to popular belief, those with the highest levels of cholesterol actually live longer than those with lower levels of cholesterol in their blood. However, with such a large segment of the American population moving into their senior years, the pharmaceutical industry's attempt to keep seniors on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs continues unabated, and the largely pharma-funded corporate media is doing their part to silence doctors and other researchers who criticize the failed cholesterol theory of heart disease. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, a Scottish doctor and the author of the book The Great Cholesterol Con, has had his entire Wikipedia entry deleted recently in an obvious attempt to silence him as a new study was just published to try and justify putting more seniors on statin drugs. Here are his comments on this "new" study.

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Why Most Doctors are Wrong About Cholesterol

Cholesterol is a waxy substance found in nearly every cell of your body and is essential to good health. It plays a role in hormone production, digestion and the manufacture of vitamin D following sun exposure, and helps protect your cell membranes. As noted by Zoe Harcombe, Ph.D., "It is virtually impossible to explain how vital cholesterol is to the human body. If you had no cholesterol in your body you would be dead." Cholesterol has long been vilified as a primary cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD), yet numerous studies refute this hypothesis, demonstrating that cholesterol has virtually nothing to do with heart disease — at least not in the way conventional medicine presents it. As noted by Harcombe, the notion that there is good and bad cholesterol is also wrong. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) are not actually cholesterol; they're carriers and transporters of cholesterol, triglycerides (fat), phospholipids and proteins. "LDL would more accurately be called the carrier of fresh cholesterol and HDL would more accurately be called the carrier of recycled cholesterol," she says. What's more, dietary cholesterol has no impact on the cholesterol level in your blood, so how could dietary cholesterol pose a health risk?

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Dr. Brownstein: “The Cholesterol=Heart Disease Hypothesis is Terribly Wrong”

For well over 30 years, every medical student has been taught that high cholesterol levels are responsible for causing heart disease—the number one killer in the US. And, the public has been similarly educated that eating a low-fat diet (having less cholesterol) is the best way to avoid becoming a cardiac patient. At my medical school graduation (nearly 30 years ago—oy vey!) the dean told us that we were trained with the latest medical information. He continued by stating that, unfortunately, over 50% of what was just taught to us was incorrect. He told us that it was our job to figure out what is fact and what is fiction. Perhaps my dean would be proud of me as I have dedicated my professional career to determining what is right and what is wrong with medicine. Now I can state, without equivalence, that the cholesterol=heart disease hypothesis is terribly wrong. Keep in mind, I came to that conclusion many years ago after studying the literature.

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