by Paul Fassa
Health Impact News

A recent study connecting increased statin drug use with rising ALS was discussed by Dr. Malcom Kendrick. He had followed earlier similar studies with similar concerns, but this one confirmed Dr. Kendrick’s suspicions.

ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), is also known as motor neuron disease (MND), or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

It is a progressive neurological disease that destroys neurons in nerves that extend laterally from the spine, thus the word lateral is part of its description. Sclerosis means scarring or hardening, which incapacitates the nerves leading to a loss of muscle control. The term Amyotrophic is a combination of Latin/Greek syllables that means “no muscle nourishment” leading to complete atrophy.

But the loss of motor control from lateral movement neuron damage progresses to losing the ability to partially or fully physically function in many areas required of the human body, such as walking, talking, eating, walking, and even breathing.

ALS patients can die while slowly suffocating. (Source)

One’s mind normally remains lucid while experiencing ALS. Dr. Kendrick mentions that ALS suffering can be so severe, especially in the late stage of breathing difficulty, that many ALS patients resort to finding places where assisted suicide is allowed to avoid slowly suffocating to death.

The Recent Statin Drug Study Discussed by Dr. Kendrick

The study of concern is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Associated with Statin Use: A Disproportionality Analysis of the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System. It was published by the journal Drug Safety in April of 2018.

The researchers at the University of California (San Diego) and Advera Health Analytics, Inc., Santa Rosa, California teamed up to analyze data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) to determine what is known as reporting odds ratios (RORs) involving statin drugs users who have reported ALS symptoms. Keep in mind that most honest medical practitioners estimate no more than 10 percent of adverse events of pharmaceutical drugs are even reported.

An ROR of two means the risk is two-fold while higher ROR numbers indicate more risk with times the ROR number, which could also be translated as a percentage of risk.

They determined the possibility or likelihood of statin users’ increased risk for ALS by statin products. Here’s what the California analysis came up with:

Statin Drug Name        –           ROR

• Rosuvastatin               9.09  (809%)
• Pravastatin                  16.2  (1,502%)
• Atorvastatin                17.0  (1,600%) *
• Simvastatin                 23.0  (2,200%) *
• Lovastatin                   107   (10,600%)

The statin drugs with asterisks after the percentages are currently the most common and widely prescribed. Dr. Kendrick explains that when it comes to statistical or epidemiological studies, association, not causation, is accepted by most. But he adds that most statisticians consider an ROR above six (6) as probable cause. (Source)

This study, which allegedly had no outside funding, concluded:

These findings extend previous evidence showing that significantly elevated ALS reporting extends to individual statin agents, and add to concerns about potential elevated occurrence of ALS-like conditions in association with statin usage. (Study Abstract)

Using available medical records from health agencies and extrapolating from them, Dr. Kendrick posits that the institutionally declared “normal” rate of 2.5 out of 100,000 people being stricken with ALS may wind up being anywhere from 10,000 to 23,750 per 100,000 due to the increased rates of prescribing statin drugs. (Source)

Why Cholesterol-lowering Statin Drugs Make People Susceptible to ALS and Other Neurological Issues

Dr. Kendrick cited the numbers from several nations indicating sharp rises with ALS since the 1990s, which is around the time statins were first heavily marketed. Since then, the marketing has increased with broadened prescription guidelines.

Dr. Kendrick wrote in his blog where he discussed this recent ALS/statin study:

“… there are strong signals that ALS has sharply increased in several countries. Cause and effect? Well, if the study in Drug Safety is correct, there must have been a rise in ALS caused by statins.” (Source)

This is not a “side effect.” It is what statin drugs are meant to do, lower bodily cholesterol production. Faulty fat epidemiological research by Ancel Keys with his Seven Countries Study publicized circa 1970 promoted the false lipid theory of cholesterol from saturated fats in our diet causing heart disease.

Keys and his colleagues, with support from the sugar industry, were effective at discrediting research from around the same time by John Yudkin that sugar, not cholesterol from saturated fats, is the main dietary source of most modern Western culture’s obesity, diabetes, and cardiac issues. (Source)

See: Public Health SCANDAL! Sugar Industry Hid Science Linking Sugar to Heart Disease – Blamed Saturated Fats and Cholesterol Instead

But it turns out that cholesterol is vital to our health. The body produces and distributes hormones using cholesterol.

Cholesterol is involved in the early stages of producing vitamin D from sunshine. Vitamin D is widely recognized as an important immune system element. Your body’s cell walls are composed of fatty tissue. Without cholesterol, they would collapse or disintegrate.

Within the issue of neurological degeneration, the brain is composed largely of cholesterol and fat, as is the myelin sheath that protects the nervous system and facilitates communication between the brain and nervous system. 25% of your body’s cholesterol is in your brain, even though the brain only comprises about 2-3% of your total body weight.

Depleting cholesterol production with statin drugs is a major contributor to rising neurological diseases including ALS, MS, and Alzheimer’s.

Cholesterol provides the basic material needed for many basic bodily needs. Ironically, cholesterol collected within arteries is most likely attempting to seal arteries that are rupturing from inflammation caused by excess refined sugars and processed trans fats.

If your cholesterol is too high, the problem is not the cholesterol. Your body has raised its levels in order to play some type of essential role(s) for your survival. (Source)

Yet somehow the drugs designed to reduce cholesterol keep being prescribed in greater numbers, especially to those over the age of 50, despite evidence proving cholesterol is not an enemy.

Some knowledgeable medical experts, even some career cardiologists, are realizing that inflammation from refined sugars and trans fat processed oils and margarine, not natural saturated fats, are responsible for obesity, which leads to diabetes 2, and ultimately heart disease.

Despite the stubborn “official” persistence of the lipid theory that promotes shunning natural saturated fats, it’s refreshing to see the science that promotes including saturated fats in one’s diet for health purposes coming from doctors, scientists, and peer-reviewed studies, many of which you can review here.

It’s amazing that such a huge error with dietary guidelines, whether partially or wholly created to hide the true cause of obesity and heart disease, became so embedded in our culture that it has heavily contributed to our current national health crisis of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

Statin drugs are the pinnacle of harm to good health created by over a half-century of low/no fat dietary advice that is stubbornly held by even some alternative health practitioners and journalists.

Statin drugs and almost all pharmaceutical drugs disguised as medicine support the pharmaceutical industry’s business model of maintaining and even often creating illness and poor health for constantly expanding profits while stifling natural remedies that can cure without “side effects” to maintain its monopoly on medicine. More on that here.

Statin drugs are the all-time best-selling pharmaceutical products, starting with Lipitor. To admit now that the science was wrong would cause huge economic hardship to many pharmaceutical companies, and open the doors to lawsuits that could cripple their market even more.

Statin drugs are proven to be dangerous. Our bodies actually need cholesterol. People with high cholesterol are outliving those with low cholesterol. Those who cling to the bogus lipid theory of heart disease are denying the truth in order to promote their careers, as explained here.

Statin Side Effects (excerpt from Statin Nation)