Has your doctor used the “you have high cholesterol” line on you after a routine blood test?
Did hearing these grave words make your hands shake and your face go pale?
Did you immediately call or text your spouse after you left the doctor’s office? Did you drive just a little too fast as you drove to the first pharmacy drive-thru to get your statin prescription filled?
It’s time to end the madness about high cholesterol!
The inconvenient scientific truth is that eating cholesterol isn’t going to kill you, and contrary to conventional belief, it’s not going to make you drop dead of a heart attack if you don’t religiously take statin drugs for the rest of your life.
It’s time to start listening to those doctors who are telling us the truth.
Evaluating heart disease risk is far more complex than a snap evaluation of a single number like total cholesterol.
Furthermore, it’s time to carefully weigh the ample scientific evidence that cholesterol is actually beneficial to our health!
Elderly With Low Cholesterol Die Sooner
Consider the research of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, who reported that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol.
Besides the fact that “total cholesterol” is a meaningless number in and of itself, taking statin drugs carries huge health risks such as muscle wasting, dementia, and cancer.
That’s right, the c-word. In every single study to date conducted on rodents, statins caused cancer. One human trial showed that breast cancer rates of women taking statins were 1500% higher than than of controls. (1)
In addition, a study showed that women who take statins for 10 or more years increase their risk of breast cancer by nearly 2.5 times. (2)
Let’s examine a few other cholesterol myths so the next time you’re sitting in a doctor’s office and the person in the white coat is pushing statins on you, you are armed with evidence supporting your position to just say no.
The truth is that natural cholesterol has many benefits in the diet!
Myth #1: People with high cholesterol are more likely to have a heart attack
It is indeed true that men who are young or middle-aged have a slightly greater risk for heart attack if their total cholesterol level is over 300.
However, for elderly women and men, high cholesterol is associated with a longer life.
In addition, cholesterol levels just below 300 carry no greater risk than very low cholesterol levels.
The suggestion by conventional medicine to take statins if cholesterol is over 180 or 200 is completely arbitrary and harmful over the long term.
Myth #2: Cholesterol and saturated fat “clog arteries“
This myth has no basis in fact as arterial plaques contain very little cholesterol or saturated fat.
75% of arterial plaque is made up of unsaturated fat, of which 50% is polyunsaturated.
Only the remaining 25% is saturated.
Moreover, the greater the concentration of polyunsaturated fat in the plaque, the more likely it is to rupture, a primary cause of heart attacks.
Chris Kresser, L. Ac sums it up well:
the notion that saturated fat “clogs arteries” and causes heart attacks is totally false. It is actually polyunsaturated fat — the so-called “heart-healthy fat — which has those effects. (3)
Myth #3: Eating saturated fat causes cholesterol levels to rise and makes people more susceptible to heart attacks
If this is true, why then have heart attack rates risen as people have avoided saturated fats like butter, meat fats, and egg yolks?
There is no evidence that saturated fat and cholesterol-rich foods contribute to heart disease, and doctors who continue to claim this are just plain wrong! At least two major studies confirm that what they are scaring you about are, in fact, complete fabrications. (4)
Myth #4: Statin drugs save lives
Statins do not result in any improvement in outcome in recent trials involving thousands of test subjects.
Why risk the devastating side effects of statins like cancer and mental decline when they won’t help anyway? (5)
Myth #5: Countries with a high consumption of cholesterol have higher rates of heart disease
The elephant in the room with this myth is that countries like France, where butter, cream, and pate are eaten with abandon, have no corresponding increase in heart disease.
According to Dr. John Briffa MD, top honors graduate of the University College London School of Medicine:
You’ll sometimes hear about the ‘French paradox’, which describes the phenomenon of low heart disease rates in France ‘despite’ a diet rich in saturated fat. Well, it seems that this ‘paradox’ is not limited to France, but is alive and well in several other countries too including the UK, Germany, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Iceland, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In other words, it’s not a paradox at all. It’s only a paradox if one believes saturated fat causes heart disease. The thing is, there’s really no good evidence that it does. (6)
So relax!
The next time you’re sitting in the doctor’s office reviewing the results of your latest blood test and the words “high cholesterol” and “statin drugs” are spoken in the same breath, just smile politely and say “no thanks”.
Feel confident in your decision to opt out of the statin madness.
(1) Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven’t Been Told About Popular Cholesterol-Lowering Medicine
(2) Long-term statin use and risk of ductal and lobular breast cancer among women 55 to 74 years of age
(3) The Diet-Heart Myth
(4) Two major studies conclude that saturated fat does NOT cause heart disease
(5) Statin drugs shown to be largely ineffective for the majority of people who take them, but why does this fact seem to have passed researchers by?
(6) The French Paradox is Not a Paradox
More Information
Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
Ignore the Awkward: How the Cholesterol Myths are Kept Alive by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
Heart Surgeon Speaks Out on What Really Causes Heart Disease
I was on statins for about 8 years. Have been off now for 8 months and feel awesome!!
We moved to Canada. I met with a Canadian doc to monitor my cholesterol. He looked at a blood panel and said that there is no way I should be on any statin and that they are over prescribed in the U.S. due to big pharm. I can remember my U.S. doc saying that I would probably stroke out at 55 if I didn’t take them. LIES.
Wow! I’ll read this, thanks!
High cholesterol and high blood pressure can often be lowered by increasing your consumption of fruits and vegetables. But don’t go off your meds abruptly. Find a physician who can monitor you, while you safely lower (and eventually eliminate) your use of statins and other medicines. The number of physicians who seek to prevent disease through proper nutrition rather than simply treat disease, is slowly increasing.
Marlene Lock
I so agree, my husbands doctor wanted to put him on a statin and he said no way and she got all huffy.
I drive the doctor crazy by refusing the stuff. Then I ask for a healing food to substitute.
You need a doctor that has studied nutrition. Doctors go to school and learn to practice medicine, so that’s what they push. Most of our ailments can be controlled with proper nutrition.
I have read that eating half of a red apple a day can reduce your cholesterol by 35%.
Beware of drugs! The brain and many hormones are made of cholesterol.