Are statins and omega-3s incompatible? - Davis

Are statins and omega-3s incompatible?
Posted on June 18, 2013 by Dr. Davis

French researcher, Dr. Michel de Lorgeril, has been in the forefront of thinking and research into nutritional issues, including the Mediterranean Diet, the French Paradox, and the role of fat intake in cardiovascular health. In a recent review entitled Recent findings on the health effects of omega-3 fatty acids and statins, and their interactions: do statins inhibit omega-3?, he explores the question of whether statin drugs are, in effect, incompatible with omega-3 fatty acids.

Dr. Lorgeril makes several arguments:

1) Earlier studies, such as GISSI-Prevenzione, demonstrated reduction in cardiovascular events with omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, consistent with the biological and physiological benefits observed in animals, experimental preparations, and epidemiologic observations in free-living populations.

 2) More recent studies (and meta-analyses) examining the effects of omega-3 fatty acids have failed to demonstrate cardiovascular benefit showing, at most, non-significant trends towards benefit.

He points out that the more recent studies were conducted post-GISSI and after agencies like the American Heart Association’s advised people to consume more fish, which prompted broad increases in omega-3 intake. The populations studied therefore had increased intake of omega-3 fatty acids at the start of the studies, verified by higher levels of omega-3 RBC levels in participants.

In addition, he raises the provocative idea that the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids appear to be confined to those not taking statin agents, as suggested, for instance, in the Alpha Omega Trial. He speculates that the potential for statins to ablate the benefits of omega-3s (and vice versa) might be based on several phenomena:

 –Statins increase arachidonic acid content of cell membranes, a potentially inflammatory omega-6 fatty acid that competes with omega-3 fatty acids. (Insulin provocation and greater linoleic acid/omega-6 oils do likewise.)

–Statins induce impaired mitochondrial function, while omega-3s improve mitochondrial function. (Impaired mitochondrial function is evidenced, for instance, by reduced coenzyme Q10 levels, with partial relief from muscle weakness and discomfort by supplementing coenzyme Q10.)

–Statins commonly provoke muscle weakness and discomfort which can, in turn, lead to reduced levels of physical activity and increased resistance to insulin. (Thus the recently reported increases in diabetes with statin drug use.)

Are the physiologic effects of omega-3 fatty acids, present and necessary for health, at odds with the non-physiologic effects of statin drugs?

I fear we don’t have sufficient data to come to firm conclusions yet, but my perception is that the case against statins is building. Yes, they have benefits in specific subsets of people (none in others), but the notion that everybody needs a statin drug is, I believe, not only dead wrong, but may have effects that are distinctly negative. And I believe that the arguments in favor of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, EPA and DHA (and perhaps DPA), make better sense.

 - See more at: http://blog.trackyourplaque.com/2013/06/are-statins-and-omega-3s-incompatible.html

More saturated fat, less heart disease

Stunning: Saturated Fat and the European Paradox

Wow. This is mindblowing.

Have you heard about the French Paradox? French people traditionally eat a lot of saturated fat, like butter – yet they generally have less heart disease than other populations. A lot of brainpower has been wasted to explain this – do perhaps the red wine protect them?

It’s not a paradox.

Of course, modern science quite clearly shows no connection between saturated fat and heart disease. That’s no secret anymore. But now it gets even more interesting:

I was just shown the diagram above, recently published in the journal Nutrition. It’s based on WHO and FAO statistics over the average intake of saturated fat in 41 European countries in 1998 (the latest available data), and the age-adjusted risk of dying from heart disease. I added some explanations.

More saturated fat, less heart disease

It’s a stunner. The French paradox is actually a French-Swiss-Icelandic-Swedish-German-Austrian-etc.-paradox!

1. France eats the most saturated fat and has the lowest rate of heart disease deaths in all of Europe.
2. Switzerland eats second-most saturated fat and has the second-lowest mortality.
3. The countries eating more saturated fat have less heart disease, period.

Less saturated fat, more heart disease

And the countries eating less saturated fat? Like Georgia, Moldavia, Azerbaijan etc.? Well, they seem to have the highest mortality from heart disease in Europe.
It’s a Pan-European paradox now.

No need to hold the butter?

What does it mean?

Correlations between populations, like these, are known as ecological data. It doesn’t really prove anything. In other words, the diagram above does not prove that saturated fat protects you from heart disease. There are obviously many other differences between these populations, not just the intake of saturated fat.

But a diagram like this can more or less disprove a theory. It’s hard to imagine how saturated fat could be a major cause of heart disease, when European populations stuffing themselves with it are so much healthier, without exception.

Can this possibly be a weird coincidence? Can saturated fat still possibly be bad? What do you say?

PS

When I recently interviewed professor Loren Cordain about our hunter-gatherer ancestors, his guess was that they on average got about 15 percent of their calories from saturated fat.
If that’s true it means that our genes should be well adapted to eating about 15 percent saturated fat. That’s more than twice as much as the maximum in the obsolete fat-phobic advice from the USDA and others. But about as much as the healthiest populations in Europe today. Coincidence?
More: The Paleo Diet Explained
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Read the complete article here.

Dr. Malcolm Kendrick M.D. looks at Cholesterol

In Dr Graveline's Newsletter dated May 12, 2009 There is an eye opening article titled "Dr. Malcolm Kendrick M.D. looks at Cholesterol". I have read a number of articles by Dr Kendrick published at The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS). They are definately suggested reading. I am going to quote some parts of Dr Kendrick's article but I really recommend you read the full article here.

Quotes from "Dr. Malcolm Kendrick M.D. looks at Cholesterol".

re: Facts that are not true.

• So, the soon to be Professor, Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe looked at the French, and their diet, and came to the conclusion that the French were protected against heart disease by their high consumption of garlic, red-wine and lightly cooked vegetables (full of anti-oxidants, don't you know). Very soon after this, it became a ‘fact' that these three factors were protective against heart disease.
  One slight problem is that there never was, and still is not, the slightest evidence that any of these three factors provides any protection. I write this in the certain knowledge that many of you are absolutely convinced that garlic, red-wine and anti-oxidants truly are protective, and that many studies have proved it. To which I would say..... ‘show me the studies'.
• I have since discovered that the entire field of heart disease research is packed full of facts that do not (when you start looking properly) exist. Female sex hormones protect against heart disease. For many years this 'fact' was just known to be true. One slight problem. There never was any evidence to support it. Unlike most ‘facts' in heart disease, it was spectacularly disproved.
• To give another example of facts that aren't true. Namely, that saturated fat intake raises cholesterol levels. The Framingham study, the longest lasting, most respected study into the causes of heart disease (started in 1948) reported that ‘In Framingham, Massachusetts, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower people's serum cholesterol.' Dr William Castelli - director of the Framingham study at the time - 1992.
• a major eight year long interventional study on fifty thousand women (the Woman's Health Intervention) found that a 25% reduction in saturated fat intake had no effect on LDL ‘bad cholesterol' levels, or heart disease rates.
• The cholesterol hypothesis is, perhaps, the greatest ever example of a medical hypothesis that has become too powerful to die. Too many vested interests are intertwined with it. World famous experts would look incredibly stupid if the hypothesis were to be accepted to be wrong.
• here is another quote from the Framingham study on the impact of cholesterol levels themselves. There is a direct association between falling cholesterol levels over the first 14 years of the study and mortality over the following 18 years. 11% overall and 14% CVD death rate increase per 1mg/dl per year drop in cholesterol levels In short, once your cholesterol level starts to fall, you are much more likely to die from heart disease. A 150% increase in relative risk for every 10 % fall, approximately.
• Add this to another very big study of the elderly, published in the Lancet: Our data accord with previous findings of increased mortality in elderly people with low serum cholesterol levels, and show that long term persistence of low cholesterol concentration actually increases the risk of death. Thus, the earlier that patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations the greater the risk of death.
• Even though the ‘experts' have been made aware of it many times, they care not that this particular emperor has no clothes. Or, to be more accurate, they cannot and will not allow themselves to accept that it might be true. For to accept this would be far too humiliating for the great and the good.

Thank You Dr. Malcolm Kendrick

Again, I highly recommend you read the complete article along with other essays.