The Cholesterol Myths - Ravnskov

Did you know. . . 

        

. . . that cholesterol is not a deadly poison, but a substance vital to the cells of all mammals? 

               

. . . that your body produces three to four times more cholesterol than you eat? 

                

. . . that this production increases when you eat only small amounts of cholesterol and decreases when you eat large amounts? 

                

. . . that the  “prudent” diet, low in saturated fat and cholesterol, cannot lower your cholesterol more than a small percentage? 

                

. . . that the only effective way to lower cholesterol is with drugs? 

                

. . . that the cholesterol-lowering drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life?

                 

. . . that the cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, do lower heart-disease mortality a little, but this is because of effects other than cholesterol lowering? Unfortunately, they also stimulate cancer. 

                

…that you may become aggressive or suicidal if you lower your cholesterol too much? 

                

…that polyunsaturated fatty acids, those which are claimed to prevent heart attacks, stimulate infections and cancer in rats? 

                

…that if you eat too much polyunsaturated oil you will age faster than normal? You will see this on the outside as wrinkled skin. You can’t see the effects of premature aging on the inside of your body, but you will certainly feel them. 

                

…that people whose blood cholesterol is low  become just as atherosclerotic as people whose cholesterol is high? 

        

…that more than thirty studies of more than 150,000 individuals have shown that people who have had a heart attack haven’t eaten more saturated fat or less polyunsaturated oil than other people? 

                

…that old people with high cholesterol live longer than old people with low cholesterol? 

                

…that high cholesterol protects against infections? 

                

…that many of these facts have been presented in scientific journals and books for decades but proponents of the diet-heart hypothesis never tell them to the public? 

                

…that the diet-heart idea and the cholesterol campaign create immense prosperity for researchers, doctors, drug producers and the food industry?

"Dr. Ravnskovs contention is that the diet-heart idea is built on sand. He leads us through the history of the concept in an interesting and readable way. His writing clearly demonstrates the enormous depth and range of his reading on this subject. Step by step he examines the evidence for the diet-heart idea, and step by step he shows us how that evidence may be flawed and contradicted by other research that is rarely acknowledged and quoted."

 ~ Michael Gurr, PhD

Terrific response to Uffe Ravnskov's offer to view “The Cholesterol Myths” at  http://www.ravnskov.nu/CM 
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Statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease - BMJ

Statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease


"The reason why statin treatment may result in cancer is probably not an effect of the drug, but that low cholesterol predisposes to cancer. Thus, nine cohort studies including more than 140 000 individuals found that cancer was inversely associated with cholesterol measured 10–30 years earlier, and the association persisted after exclusion of cancer cases appearing during the first 4 year."

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Getting Off Statin Drug Stories - Dach

Getting Off Statin Drug Stories by Jeffrey Dach MD

Left Image: courtesy of Uffe Ravnskov, MD Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You.Book Cover

Just Ask Judith Walsh MD in JAMA

 

 

Getting Off Statin Drug Stories
by Jeffrey Dach MD
Case Number One, Martha
Martha is 55 years old, healthy and no history of heart disease.  Nonetheless, Martha has been taking a statin drug for “high cholesterol” under the care of “the top cardiologist” in South Florida for the past five years.  Martha has also been under my care taking a bioidentical hormone program for menopausal symptoms, and doing very well.  Every six months, we run a lab panel which always shows  low cholesterol of 170, courtesy of her statin anti-cholesterol drug.


 And, every time Martha comes into the office to review her lab results, I print out a 2004 JAMA article by Judith Walsh, MD who reviewed thirteen statin drug clinical trials from 1966 to 2003.(1)  Dr. Judth Walsh concludes that cholesterol lowering drugs provide no health benefit for women.  I give her this article and, at the same time, explain to her that no woman should be on a statin drug.  Lowering cholesterol with a statin drug has no health benefit for women, that’s a fact, and public information readily available.

Playing Games With Statins

Every six months I recommend to Martha stopping the statin drug, and every six month, her cardiologist puts her back on the statin drug.  This has been going on for three years now.

Finally Success At Convincing Martha to Stop the Statin Drug

Finally this last time, Martha seems more receptive to idea that the statin drug is harming her and not helping her.  She is sitting in my office recounting multiple health problems for which she sees numerous doctors: back pain, asthma, sinus infections, skin problems, and allergies.  I suggested to Martha the possibility that many of her health problems are  caused by the low cholesterol from the statin drug.  Martha finally sees the light, goes home and tosses the bottle of pills into the garbage can.

Feeling Better

About a week later, Martha called me and reported, “I feel so much better off that statin drug, thank you so much! “.  Apparently, the statin drug was causing adverse health effects, and Martha was now feeling much better.

Believing in the Propaganda
This case illustrates the difficulty in convincing patients to stop their statin drug.  It is difficult to counter the drug company propaganda, and convince these patients they are harming their health with the statin drugs. Many continue to believe in the myth that cholesterol causes heart disease, and they go on to become statin drug medical victims.  I see them every day.  When we have a success like Martha who finally gets off her statin drug, this is a cause for celebration.


Left Image: Ignore the Awkward.: How the Cholesterol Myths Are Kept Aliveby Uffe Ravnskov MD

Case Number Two – Roger
Roger is a seventy one year old retired executive, and an avid tennis player.  He has no history of coronary artery disease and has always been healthy. Two years ago, his cardiologist said his cholesterol of 210 was “too high”, and prescribed a statin anti-cholesterol drug.  A year later, Roger’s tennis game deteriorated, he found his timing and balance was off, and he lost every game to players who could never beat him before.

Adverse Effects of the Statin Drug

I suggested to Roger that the decline in his tennis game was most likely an adverse effect of the statin drug on his muscle and nerve function.  He was losing his balance and coordination. 

I recommended stopping the statin anti-cholesterol drug.  At first, Roger resisted and said his wife wanted him to take the statin drug because she thought it was ”good medical care”, and she (mistakenly) believed that a lower cholesterol was somehow preventive of heart disease.

How to Counter the Propaganda: A Book For You
In order to counter the drug company cholesterol propaganda, I gave Roger a copy of the book, Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You, by Uffe Ravnskov MD PhD. This book reviews the medical studies which supposedly show that cholesterol is the cause of heart disease, and reveals that they do no such thing. This is a medical myth.  Neither cholesterol consumption nor cholesterol blood levels cause heart disease.  Similarly, many medical studies demonstrate that anti-cholesterol drugs work very well to reduce blood cholesterol levels, however, this treatment does not prolong life and makes most people sick with adverse side effects.

Roger was amazed and his eyes practically popped out out of his head when he “saw the light”.  The statin drugs were turning him another medical victim.  Once Roger learned the truth about the ”cholesterol causes heart disease” myth,  he took his statin drug bottle and threw it into the garbage can.  Two weeks later, off the statin drug,  Roger was back to his old self, prancing about the tennis court like a gazelle, and winning every game with ease.


Left Image : The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease by Uffe Ravnskov MD
 Are You Still a Believer in Anti-Cholesterol Drugs?

If you are still a believer in Statin Drugs, take a look at this primary prevention study published July 2010 in the Archives of Internal Medicine by Dr. Ray.(3)  He reviewed 11 statin drug clinical trials with 65,229 participants followed for approximately 244,000 person-years.  The astounding results showed the statin drug group all-cause mortality was THE SAME as the placebo group ! (3)  There was no benefit from the statin drugs !!!  This article was published in the mainstream medical literature !!


If cholesterol was truly the cause of heart attacks, then one would expect heart attack victims to reveal the high cholesterol causing their heart attack.   They found the opposite.  Heart attack victims have low cholesterol.  A study  analyzed 137,000 heart attack patients from 541 US hospitals and found mean cholesterol was only 174.  This is low, not high. (4)

In addition, if high cholesterol was truely the cause of heart attacks, one would expect heart attack victims with the highest cholesterol to have the worst prognosis, and lowest cholesterol to have the best prognosis.  They don’t.  A study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit showed that three years after a heart attack, the patients with lowest cholesterol had the highest mortality (14% vs. 7 %) (5).

Conclusion:

The cholesterol theory of heart disease is a myth maintained by drug company propaganda to support massive profits from cholesterol lowering drugs.  These drugs provide no health benefit in terms of prolonging life, and at the same time produce harm from adverse side effects.  Avoid becoming a victim of the statin drug propaganda machine.

Articles with related interest:
Heart Disease Vitamin C and Linus Pauling
Getting Off Statin Drug Stories
How to Reverse Heart Disease with the Coronary Calcium Score
Cholesterol Lowering Drugs for the Elderly, Bad Idea
Cholesterol Lowering Statin Drugs for Women Just Say No
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Heart Disease Part Two – Atherosclerosis: How Does it Happen?Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease Part Three by Jeffrey Dach MDHeart Disease, Ascorbate, Lysine and Linus Pauling by Jeffrey Dach MDA Choirboy for Cholesterol Turns Disbeliever by Jeffrey Dach MD
Links and References
(1) http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/291/18/2243
JAMA. 2004;291(18):2243-2252. Drug Treatment of Hyperlipidemia in Women
Judith M. E. Walsh, MD, MPH; Michael Pignone, MD, MPH
(2) Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You, Uffe Ravnskov GB Publishing (January 26, 2009)
(3) http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/170/12/1024
Statins and All-Cause Mortality in High-Risk Primary Prevention A Meta-analysis of 11 Randomized Controlled Trials Involving 65 229 Participants. Kausik K. Ray, MD, MPhil, FACC, FESC; Sreenivasa Rao Kondapally Seshasai, MD, MPhil; Sebhat Erqou, MD, MPhil, PhD; Peter Sever, PhD, FRCP, FESC; J. Wouter Jukema, MD, PhD; Ian Ford, PhD; Naveed Sattar, FRCPath. Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(12):1024-1031.
Background  Statins have been shown to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality among individuals with clinical history of coronary heart disease. However, it remains uncertain whether statins have similar mortality benefit in a high-risk primary prevention setting. Notably, all systematic reviews to date included trials that in part incorporated participants with prior cardiovascular disease (CVD) at baseline. Our objective was to reliably determine if statin therapy reduces all-cause mortality among intermediate to high-risk individuals without a history of CVD.
Data Sources  Trials were identified through computerized literature searches of MEDLINE and Cochrane databases (January 1970-May 2009) using terms related to statins, clinical trials, and cardiovascular end points and through bibliographies of retrieved studies.
Study Selection  Prospective, randomized controlled trials of statin therapy performed in individuals free from CVD at baseline and that reported details, or could supply data, on all-cause mortality.
Data Extraction  Relevant data including the number of patients randomized, mean duration of follow-up, and the number of incident deaths were obtained from the principal publication or by correspondence with the investigators.
Data Synthesis  Data were combined from 11 studies and effect estimates were pooled using a random-effects model meta-analysis, with heterogeneity assessed with the I2 statistic. Data were available on 65 229 participants followed for approximately 244 000 person-years, during which 2793 deaths occurred.
The use of statins in this high-risk primary prevention setting was not associated with a statistically significant reduction (risk ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.83-1.01) in the risk of all-cause mortality. There was no statistical evidence of heterogeneity among studies (I2 = 23%; 95% confidence interval, 0%-61% [P = .23]).
Conclusion  This literature-based meta-analysis did not find evidence for the benefit of statin therapy on all-cause mortality in a high-risk primary prevention set-up.
(4) http://www.ahjonline.com/article/S0002-8703(08)00717-5/abstract
AHJ Volume 157, Issue 1, Pages 111-117.e2 (January 2009)
Lipid levels in patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease: An analysis of 136,905 hospitalizations in Get With The Guidelines. Amit Sachdeva, MDa, Christopher P. Cannon, MDb, Prakash C. Deedwania, MDc, Kenneth A. LaBresh, MDd, Sidney C. Smith Jr, MDe, David Dai, MSf, Adrian Hernandez, MDf, Gregg C. Fonarow, MDa, on behalf of the GWTG Steering Committee and Hospitals
(5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19437396
Cardiol J. 2009;16(3):227-33. Low admission LDL-cholesterol is associated with increased 3-year all-cause mortality in patients with non ST segment elevation myocardial infarction. Al-Mallah MH, Hatahet H, Cavalcante JL, Khanal S.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The relationship between admission low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels and long-term outcomes has not been established in patients with acute coronary syndrome. We tested the hypothesis that patients who develop non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) despite low LDL have a worse cardiovascular outcome in the long term.
METHODS: Patients admitted with NSTEMI between 1 January 1997 and 31 December 2000 and with fasting lipid profiles measured within 24 hours of admission were selected for analysis. Baseline characteristics and 3-year all-cause mortality were compared between the patients with LDL above and below the median. Multivariate analysis was used to determine the predictors of all-cause mortality, and adjusted survival was analyzed using the Cox proportional hazard model.
RESULTS: Of the total of 517 patients, 264 had LDL dL and 253 had LDL > 105 mg/dL. There was no difference in age, gender, severity of coronary artery disease, and left ventricular ejection fraction between the 2 groups. Thirty-six percent of patients with LDL 105 mg/dL were on lipid-lowering therapy on admission.
After 3 years, patients with admission LDL dL had higher all-cause mortality rate compared to patients with LDL > 105 mg/dL (14.8% vs. 7.1%, p = 0.005). The higher all-cause mortality persisted (OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.0-3.5, p = 0.05) even after adjustment for confounding variables.

CONCLUSIONS: In our cohort, lower LDL-cholesterol at admission was associated with decreased 3-year survival in patients with NSTEMI.

Jeffrey Dach MD
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Should Women take Statin Drugs – ever? - Watson

http://dietheartnews.com/2012/11/should-women-ever-take-statin-drugs/

Should Women take Statin Drugs – ever?

Alan Watson | November 27, 2012 |

 

A true story…

In 1987, Mevacor, the first statin cholesterol-lowering drug, was introduced in record short time. Within a decade, Zocor, Pravachol, Lescol, Lipitor and Baycol were added. In August 2001, after 31 deaths from a muscle-destroying side effect, Bayer of Germany withdrew Baycol.

While clinical studies have demonstrated a small benefit among people with active, late stage heart disease, the threat of muscle-destroying side effects, liver damage and cancer are on the rise.

As reported in the Felix Letter, in the “supposedly successful” Simvastatin trial (Zocor), where the average life extension in the treatment group after 5 years was 24 days, Dr. Louis Krut is quoted as saying:

“If we were to set a very modest goal to extend their average life by only 1 year, it would require them to take simvastatin for 83 years.”

 

According to Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, statin drugs may stimulate cancer. Because the latency period between exposure and incidence is as long as 20 years, we do not know the extent to which the statin drugs will increase the rate of cancer in coming decades.

In the CARE study (Pravachol), 12 women in the treatment group developed breast cancer compared to just one in the control group (not taking the drug). And blood levels in the patients taking statin drugs were close to those that cause cancer in rodents.

Why take a chance with muscle-destroying side effects, liver failure and cancer? That’s what I asked my now deceased mother-in-law several years ago when she started taking Zocor.

Doris’s total cholesterol was 285. She was a little overweight but, at age 72, she was enjoying life and had no history of chronic illness. She drove a car, went shopping, and was even looking for a boyfriend!

As she lay in ICU one year later with elevated liver enzymes and a serious blood infection, her doctor took her off of Zocor. Once she stabilized, suspecting the drug had caused harm, we asked her doctor to recheck her cholesterol.

Yes – Doris was dying, but why not see if the drug treatment nonetheless had succeeded in lowering her cholesterol. When the doctor reluctantly complied – it took a letter from the family – Doris’s cholesterol was 130 – a drop of 155 mg/dl in less than a year.

After a few more agonizing hospitalizations, Doris was dead – Zocored within a year of starting the drug. Her doctor said she died of leukemia. Women – don’t let this happen to you. There are no circumstances – ever – when a woman should take a drug to lower cholesterol.

Women with higher cholesterol – live longer. Also, you must ask your doctor for a complete lipid evaluation. Just focusing on total cholesterol is a serious medical mistake. The ultimate price you may pay is an agonizingly slow death from cancer, liver failure or leukemia.
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