Alrighty then. It is well established that CoQ-10 is needed for a healthy heart. It is also well established that statins suck out this coenzime out of the heart. http://www.mayoclinic.org/search/search-results?q=coq-10 https://www.drsinatra.com/coq10-facts-what-you-should-know If you add these 2 FACTS together you can come to the conclusion that statins have a negative effect on the heart. This is also BACKED UP by Big Pharma, because they actually make a statin drug that also contains CoQ-10. Now for the price of my Co-Payment of a doctor's visit, I can order Red Yeast Rice (natural statin) and CoQ-10 and if I wish to do so, protect my heart without ever visiting a doctor. Of course Big Pharma wouldn't like that, since they can't patent either one of those...
Let me amaze you with simple logic and fact: The reason why you didn't win the noble prize is because you really don't deserve it. It makes absolutely no sense to say that cholesterol is not related to heart disease because 50% or whatever number of people who had a MI didn't have elevated cholesterol levels. Cholesterol, especially LDL(something that you too ignored, because I wrote "especially LDL" in the last post) is related to it. As I said, the Framingham study established this connection. But there are several other risk factors: Obesity, Smoking, Sedentarism, Family History and so on... You may have all these risk factors or just some of them. You may even have none of them as still have the disease. Or you may have all and die old from canceror other disease. This is all probability and that is the way preventive EVIDENCE BASED medicine works.
A note on dietary cholesterol. (basically what you eat effecting your serum cholesterol) Even according to the original asshole Dr. Ancel Keys, what you eat has no effect on your blood cholesterol level. Yet, the first thing my doctor gave me was a dietary guidelines for what I should eat!!! "dietary intake of cholesterol has no impact on the level of cholesterol in your blood. If we look at two major long-term studies, Framingham and Tecumseh, it is clear that those who ate the most cholesterol had exactly the same level of cholesterol in their blood as those who ate the least cholesterol." http://www.thincs.org/Malcolm.choltheory.htm
How about the study showing that older people with higher cholesterol levels live longer? So why are we making them taking statins if it is contrary to what we try to achieve, aka living longer?: This came out last year so fairly fresh... "Overall, an inverse trend is found [in Japan] between all-cause mortality and total (or low density lipoprotein [LDL]) cholesterol levels: mortality is highest in the lowest cholesterol group without exception. If limited to elderly people, this trend is universal. As discussed in Section 2, elderly people with the highest cholesterol levels have the highest survival rates irrespective of where they live in the world." ------------------------------- I have found the original quote: To quote Ancel Keys, from a paper in 1956: ‘In the adult man the serum cholesterol level is essentially independent of the cholesterol intake over the whole range of human diets.’ So we knew this back in 1956, yet there was that Time magazine cover in 1984...
This one I agree with you... To say that "it has no effect", it is a bit of an exaggeration, because there is a minor effect, but almost always, diet has no benefit in this sense. And I always explained this to my patients when they asked me about it. This is also well established and if your doctor is recomending you this, he is indeed wrong, just like speedo's doctor who said he was giving him NSAIDS to "reduce inflamation". And this is why statins are given, because they act in the REAL source of cholesterol: the liver. They inhibit and enzyme that produces cholesterol.
As I said, methodology is EXTREMELY important in studies. The Framingham study had a very serious methodology and the way it was conducted makes its results reliable. But if you look hard enough, you can find "studies" to prove almost anything you want. That is why people who take medicine seriously use reliable and serious sources, like the Framingham study which is in fact a reference also in methodology.
Kind of a side issue, but medical science like to treat the symptoms, instead of the underlying causes. High BP? Here take the BP lowering drug, we don't really care or know what causes it. The same with heart disease and statins. Statins lower the TC level, but that doesn't mean it prevents heard disease by that lower TC number. What statins also do is, they fight inflammation, they are anti-inflammatory. Now we know that it is the inflammation in the arteries that causes the problems, so it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that the positive effect of statins are due to not by the TC lowering but to the anti-inflammatory effect. So statins could be the right drugs for the wrong reason. And we could fight inflammation by other means with more natural and cheaper ways. Like taking Turmuric for example...
So let's summarize what we agreed on or established fact so far: 1. Dietary cholesterol has very little effect on blood serum cholesterol. Bacon and eggs, here we go. 2. For elderly people it is actually advantageous to have high cholesterol level. They live longer. 3. Women over 55 has no statistical advantage of any prevention when taking statins. Zero, nada, zilch. Simply, it doesn't matter. 4. Statins can help people with heart disease, but probably because it fights inflammation, not because it lowers total cholesterol. 5. If you decide to take statins, take it with CoQ-10. 6. There is natural statin in Red Yeast Rice, so one could buy it without prescription. 7. Just because your TC is low, you still can kick the bucket tomorrow...Half of the people do it this way... 8. The good marker that has actual preventive ability for heart disease is: High Tryg level with high level of inflammed small particle LDL (not measured in a normal lipid panel)
The anti-inflamatory effects of statins are well established, but this doesn't excluse high cholesterol as a risk... Anti-inflamatory and lowering cholesterol effects COMBINED benefit these patiens... In some situations, the anti-inflamatory effects of statins are more useful. That is why they are prescribed in the occasion of a heart attack AS AN ESTABLISHED GUIDELINE. Obviously lowering the cholesterol in this situation won't have any immediate effect, but the anti-inflamatory effect of the drug will. In some situations, you may cure an illness, in others you can only control it... There may be vested interests in "hiding" the cure to keep just controlling. The solution to this? Cut regulation and facilitate the entrance of other pharmaceutical companies to compete with the current ones, which will have all the interest in doing this.
1. Not so fast. You may have normal cholesterol, but you'll still gain a lot of weght if you eat too much and obesity is one of the main risk factors. I love bacon and eggs, even though I'm not american, but one has to eat it moderately to not gain too much weight. 2. Never said that and there are no serious studies proving it. 3. It depends. Just Women, 55 is too vague... She may smoke or not, she may have a family history or not, she may be obese, or not... She may have several other risck factors that may make sense for her to take statins. she'll have to make an informed decision with her doctor. 4. As I said in the last post, it is a combined effect, given the well established between cholesterol levels and heart disease in the Framingham study. 5. Not necessarily. Even in the may clinic article you sent, it doesn't affirm this, it is being studied. 6. Do it, if you want too. No problem there. Your choice. 7. Yes. But the people who have high cholesterol as a risk factor, can lower their risks by taking statins and maybe, people who have not so high cholesterol, can benefit from taking them too, maybe the lower LDL, the better. It'll have to be proven by serious studies. Until then, it is a patient's informed choice with his doctor.