WEIGHING UP THE EVIDENCE ON STATINS - Dr Verner Wheelock

WEIGHING UP THE EVIDENCE ON STATINS

Statins are certainly in the news these days. NICE has put forward proposals that all those with a 10% risk of developing heart disease should be treated with statins. Effectively this means that everyone over the age of 50 years, including those who are fit and healthy, would be expected to have the treatment. On the other hand this strategy is being questioned by many within the medical profession. In this blog I will try to tease out the information which individuals need in order to make a sound judgment on whether or not to go on statins.

 

Essentially people need to know if they will derive any benefit from the statins which will have to be balanced against the type, frequency and severity of any side-effects.

 

According to Professor Sir Rory Collins, from Oxford University, GPs and the public are being made unjustifiably suspicious of the drug, creating a situation that has echoes of the MMR vaccine controversy(1). Collins is the leader of the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ (CTT) Collaboration which has been analysing data on the effects of statins which has been supplied to them by the drug companies. In their latest report it was claimed that statins significantly reduced major cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality in people at low risk (2). The results of this trial were a critical factor influencing the position taken by NICE.

 

This is somewhat surprising because other studies have concluded that statins are not beneficial to people at low risk. It is also highly relevant that the CTT study has been subject to severe criticisms.

In an exercise of this kind one would expect the investigators to compare the results of those who had been treated with statins with those of a control, consisting of a similar group of people who had not been treated. When this approach has been used, others have not been able to find that there were any appreciable benefits in the statin group. For example, Ray and co-workers analysed the results of 11 clinical trials involving 65,229 participants with approximately 244,000 person-years of follow-up and 2793 deaths (3). All of these individuals were high risk but without previous cardiovascular disease. Over an average treatment period of 3.7 years the use of statin therapy did not result in any reduction in all-cause mortality.

 

By contrast the CTT group has adopted a totally different approach which has been explained by Dr David Newman in an article on his blog (4). Instead of comparing those who were treated with statins with the controls, they selected those individuals in which the statin treatment reduced the LDL Cholesterol 1 mmol/L or 40 points in US terms. As Dr Newman describes it:

 

“…they shifted the data so that their numbers corresponded precisely to patients whose cholesterol responded perfectly.”

 

He goes on:

“Patients whose cholesterol drops 40 points are different than others, and not just because their body had an ideal response to the drug. They may also be taking the drug more regularly, and more motivated. Or they may be exercising more, or eating right, and more health conscious than other patients. So it should be no surprise that this analysis comes up with different numbers than a simple comparison of statins versus placebo pills. Ultimately, then, this new information tells us little or nothing about the benefits someone might expect if they take a statin. Instead it tells us the average benefits among those who had a 40-point drop in LDL.”

 

Furthermore the LDL Cholesterol drop cannot be predicted because the effect of the statins is unknown. This means that the conclusions of this analysis have absolutely no relevance to patients and doctors who have to decide if statins should be prescribed.

Here is a final quote from Dr Newman:

 

“Perhaps never has a statistical deception been so cleverly buried, in plain sight. The study answers this question: how much did the people who responded well to the drug benefit? This is, by definition, a circular and retrospective question: revisiting old data and re-tailoring the question to arrive at a conclusion. And to be fair they may have answered an interesting, and in some ways contributory, question. However the authors’ conclusions imply that they answered a different, much bigger question. And that is not a true story.”

 

But it does not stop here because the CTT also argued that the side-effects of the statin treatments are relatively small. Rhabdomolysis, which is the catastrophic breakdown of muscle tissue, has an excess incidence of about 0.1 per 1000 over 5 years according to CTT calculations. However Dr Malcolm Kendrick, author of “The Great Cholesterol Con” refers to a study conducted in the USA, which analysed data on statin side-effects recorded on the FDA’s Medwatch. Between July 2005 and March 2011 there were 186,796 case reports of which 8,111 were due to rhabdomolysis. This equates to 811 deaths over this period. As it is accepted that reporting rates are extremely low, this figure can be multiplied by a factor of 10 or even 100 to obtain the true value (5). If precedents were followed up this evidence should be more than enough to have the drugs withdrawn.

 

The CTT authors reported a 10% increase in the relative risk of developing diabetes while on statins. This equates to 5 new cases per 1000 people treated for 5 years. However other studies have reported values of up to 50% more (6).

 

Uffe Ravnskov is an independent researcher in Sweden who has suggested that if you are a healthy person who is being advised to go on statins then this is what you should be told before going ahead (7):

 

“Your chance not to get a non-fatal heart event during the next five years ……is 97.1 per cent. You can increase your chance to 98.1 per cent if you take a statin every day. But then your risk of suffering muscle problems is about 25 per cent unless you never exercise (1); your risk of becoming sexually impotent is about 20 per cent (2); your risk of suffering from diabetes is about 4 per cent (3), and you also run a risk of memory loss, liver damage, peripheral neuropathy, cataract, and cancer, but we do not yet know how large these risks are. And don´t forget that many non-fatal heart events may heal with minor health consequences or none at all.”

 

The picture now becomes very clear. The positive results which have been claimed for the CTT study have only been obtained by manipulating the data. Unfortunately this is typical of how the modern pharmaceutical industry functions. It hypes up the benefits and plays down the undesirable side-effects. This is a particularly bad example because the leader of the CTT is a knighted professor from the prestigious University of Oxford. Nevertheless the case which they present should be subject to rigorous examination. It is extremely regrettable that NICE has allowed itself to be taken in by what can only be described as rubbish!

 

There is no doubt that there is growing awareness that the case in support of statins is full of holes. To-day in The Daily Telegraph there is an article by Haroun Gajraj, a vascular surgeon, no less, who decided to stop his treatment with statins. After looking more closely at the research, he concluded that statins were not going to prevent a heart attack and that his cholesterol levels were all but irrelevant. He also draws attention to a recent survey by Pulse magazine, which found that six out of 10 GPs opposed the draft proposal to lower the risk level at which patients are prescribed statins. As many as  55% said they would not take statins themselves or recommend them to a relative, based on the proposed new guidelines(8).

 

REFERENCES

1. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/21/-sp-doctors-fears-over-statins-may-cost-lives-says-top-medical-researcher
2. CTT (2012) Lancet 380 pp 581-590.
3. http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=416105
4. http://cardiobrief.org/2012/05/27/guest-post-data-drugs-and-deception-a-true-story/
5. http://drmalcolmkendrick.org/tag/rhabdomyolysis/
6. http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/heartofthematter/download/StatinsshouldNOTbebroadedtowiderpopulation.pdf
7. http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g280?tab=responses
8. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10717431/Why-Ive-ditched-statins-for-good.html

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Read the complete article here.

Cholesterol and Why Statin Drugs are Harmful

Cholesterol and Why Statin Drugs are Harmful

 

 

For decades, health experts have told us to watch our cholesterol levels, lower our intake of saturated fats, and consume low-fat diets.

An estimated 102 million Americans have cholesterol levels higher than 200. More than 20 million Americans are on statin drugs to lower cholesterol.

In theory, if we were following recommendations from doctors, dietitians, fitness experts, and dutifully taking our medications, we should be see a reduction in disease.

But the fact is…
We don’t.

So, it’s important to ask…

• Does eating high cholesterol foods correlate to rising cholesterol levels?

• Do high cholesterol levels necessarily mean you are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease or heart attack?

• Is the use of statin drugs safe and useful in reducing the levels of cholesterol in the body, thus lowering our disease risk?

A recent government study shows that raising levels of HDL “good” cholesterol using a drug did not diminish the chance of heart disease.
From the NY Times:

“Patients taking the medicine along with Zocor had higher levels of H.D.L. and lower levels of triglycerides, a fat in the blood. Despite these seeming improvements, the patients fared no better and may have done slightly worse than those taking Zocor alone. That is why the entire theory behind trying to increase H.D.L. levels in patients with heart disease may need rethinking.

In 2010 the British Medical Journal published a study revealing that the use of statin drugs was connected to liver, muscle, eye, and kidney problems. The results showed increased risk of moderate or serious liver dysfunction, acute renal failure, moderate or serious myopathy and cataracts.

Dietary cholesterol levels are not related to serum cholesterol levels

According to Nora Gedgaudas, of Primal Body – Primal Mind:

“No study to date has adequately shown any significant link between dietary and serum cholesterol levels…or any significant causative link between cholesterol and actual heart disease. Other than in uncommon cases of genetically based ‘familial hypercholesterolemia’ (where natural mechanisms which regulate cholesterol production fail and the body cannot stop overproduction-even here the proof of the problematic nature of cholesterol is dubious, at best), cholesterol is perhaps only potentially deleterious in and of itself in oxidized forms, occurring as a result of food processing methods (such as in “reduced fat” milks, powdered milk/eggs) and high heat cooking/frying. Inflammatory processes can also be oxidizing of cholesterol in the body. Other than this, ALL cholesterol in the body is the same. ‘HDL’ and ‘LDL’ only reflect transport mechanisms for healthy cholesterol and are meaningless measures of coronary heart disease risk (Enig, Ravnskov).

It is also important to realize that ‘HDL’ and ‘LDL’ are NOT actual cholesterol at all, but merely the protein transport mechanism for cholesterol. Again, All cholesterol is exactly the same. LDL takes cholesterol away from the liver to the extremities and other organs for various purposes and HDL merely returns the same cholesterol to the liver where it may be recycled.”

Gedgaudas believes it is more important to find out why your cholesterol levels are up. When we have stress, infections, clogged arteries, high carbohydrate diets which cause insulin resistance and diabetes, weight issues, free radical activity, and low thyroid function, these can cause the liver to produce more cholesterol in order to deal with excess inflammation. If cholesterol levels are rising, it’s always a sign of some underlying problem, but it doesn’t mean cholesterol is causing the problem.

Doctors are missing the problem

Prescriptions for high cholesterol go hand-in-hand with recommendations for low-fat diets. This type of diet is not only tasteless and unsatisfying, it is also grossly deficient in the most nutrient-dense and health supporting foods on the planet: foods with healthy fats and cholesterol.

In the last five years, doctors have started recommending that obese children take statin drugs. Of course, there is little to no thought given to the staples of the Standard American children’s diet: highly processed, increasingly lower and lower in fat ast time goes on, high-carb, sugary foods with little to no nutritional content.

It’s a wonder doctors don’t draw the obvious conclusion that these foods might possibly be the culprit to children’s health and obesity issues. But they don’t. What’s more, they fail to give good, sound nutritional advice. The result is that some children end up on drugs because apparently providing real, healthy foods that support growth and development is not what they believe will solve the problem.

Truths about cholesterol:

• Cholesterol is vital to health. Without it, we have hormonal, brain, heart, endocrine, and nervous system issues and damage. Lack of adequate cholesterol in the body leads to blood sugar imbalance, mineral deficiencies, chronic inflammation, infertility, allergies, and asthma.

• Cholesterol is beneficial to the gastrointestinal environment and lining because it improves cell-membrane integrity and can also help reduce excessive permeability of substances through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream.

• Every cell in our bodies is made of cholesterol. Without it they would become leaky and porous, causing a flood of cholesterol taken from other parts of the body to repair damage.

• Cholesterol is the precursor to Vitamin D, which is now known to be a hormone rather than a vitamin, and is responsible for helping to digest fats, mineral metabolism, protecting bones, strengthening the immune system

• Cholesterol is a powerful anti-oxidant which protects the body from free-radical damage and aging

• The theory of cholesterol being unhealthy was originally created by food processing industries to villanize animal fats and products, which are direct competitors to vegetable oils, and also from the pharmaceutical industry to develop a market to sell cholesterol-lowering drugs. Lipitor and other Statin drugs are enormous profit-bringers for pharmaceutical companies.

Truths about statin drugs:

• Taking them only masks the problem going on in your body (for a little while) and doesn’t get to the cause of the problem, which is usually chronic inflammation due to poor dietary habits which cause nutritional deficiencies

• They deplete your body of vital nutrients, such as C0Q10, which is essential to heart health. Cardiologist Dr. Peter Langsjoen conducted a study involving 20 patients with completely normal heart function. Six months later, after being on 20 mg daily of Lipitor (a low dose), two-thirds of the patients were found to have abnormalities in the filling phase of the heart. Langsjoen’s conclusion was that this occurred due to the depletion of CoQ10. A lack of C0Q10 causes muscle pain and weakness, due to the prevention of energy being produced in the mitrochondria in the cell.

• These medications can also cause other types of muscle weakness and pain. In Denmark, researchers who studied 500,000 residents (approximately 9 percent of the population) discovered that those taking prescription medications to lower cholesterol were more likely to develop polyneuropathy, characterized as weakness and pain or tingling in the hands or feet and difficulty walking.

• They cause a marked decrease of cholesterol-production in the brain. According to Dr. Barry Sears, this leads to a loss of memory due to diminished production of new synaptic connections and loss of memory.

• They are costly in more ways than one: for your wallet and for your health. Eating healthy foods that naturally maintain normal cholesterol levels in the body costs less.

• They causes other side-effects, one of them being liver damage. Liver damage is dangerous and can lead to other health issues that are very unpleasant, expensive, and time-consuming to treat

Would the real enemies please stand up?

• Industrial fats – industrially-produced, polyunsaturated fats: canola, soybean, cottonseed, corn, peanut, safflower, and sunflower oils, shortening, butter substitutes and spreads, and other fake butter products. Some of these oils come from living things, but they are processed and chemically-altered which transforms them into trans-fats (even though the label may specifically read “no trans fats”), deodorized, and subjected to high- heat temperatures, rendering them nutritionally bankrupt and rancid.

• Sugar - which causes metabolic syndrome and blood sugar imbalance, leading to insulin resistance and diabetes, and heart attacks. In 2009, the United States was ranked 4th in sugar consumption levels in the world.

• Lack of nutrient-dense foods – modern diets are largely represented by nutritionally-deficient and heavily processed convenience foods which do not support the health of the human body. They cause build up in our arteries, liver damage, diabetes, premature aging, and cardiovascular disease.

• Stress - periods of stress deplete nutrients in the body causing inflammation, which triggers disease.

Watch this informative video by Dr. Mark Hyman about cholesterol:

How to keep inflammation and cholesterol levels normal in your body

Real, traditional fats from healthy animals and birds on pasture actually make us healthier because they are easy to digest and are some of the most nutrient-dense foods available. Looking back over the historical past, the human diet has always contained large amounts of fat and cholesterol.
Dr. Weston A. Price, author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, analyzed foods consumed by traditional, primitive peoples all over the world. In these populations, health was robust and disease nearly non-existent. He discovered that their diets allowed for at least four times the calcium and other minerals, and at least 10 times the fat-soluble vitamins and amino acids as the modern diet which were obtained from animal foods such as eggs, fish, shellfish, animal fats like butter, lard, and tallow, and organ meats. All these foods were high in cholesterol and fat.
If you want to maintain good health:

• Eat real, grass-fed butter

• Eat olive and coconut oil

• Eat grass-fed meats, poultry and pasture-raised eggs from reputable, local sources that raise their products sustainable

• Eat safe-sourced seafood

• Take cod liver oil

• Eat organic fruits and vegetables

• If you do eat grains, eat them sparingly and prepare them properly through soaking, sprouting, or fermenting. Eat grains with healthy fats such as milk, cream, butter, cheese, and other healthy foods containing fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, lard, tallow, bone marrow, and grass-fed meats and poultry.

• Avoid sugar – that means any refined carbohydrates – crackers, breads, rice cakes, cereals, pretzels, chips, bagels, pasta, desserts, sugary beverages (including juice and power “electrolyte” drinks).

• Avoid processed foods and drinks, and especially those with artificial sweeteners or high-fructose corn syrup

• Avoid unhealthy vegetable oils such as canola, soy, cottonseed, or safflower. These oils are too high in Omega 6s (which cause inflammation, cancer, and heart disease), are highly-processed at high temperatures making them rancid, and many of these oils are also likely to be genetically-modified as well, which has its own set of health risks.

• Lower stress levels with moderate and enjoyable exercise and relaxation strategies. Stress can severely deplete nutrients in the body, leading to heart disease.

For more information:
Importance of Dietary Fats
Cholesterol and Health – Chris Masterjohn
The Benefits of High Cholesterol – Weston A. Price Foundation
Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven’t Been Told About Popular Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs – WAP Foundation
The Oiling of America – Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary G. Enig, PhD
I have high cholesterol, and I don’t care – The Healthy Skeptic
Medication Sense – Dr. Jay S. Cohen
Suggested reading:
Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
The Cholesterol Delusion by Ernest N. Curtis, M.D.

This post is part of Sarah The Healthy Home Economist’s Monday Mania.

The Benefits of High Cholesterol

By Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

 

People with high cholesterol live the longest. This statement seems so incredible that it takes a long time to clear one´s brainwashed mind to fully understand its importance. Yet the fact that people with high cholesterol live the longest emerges clearly from many scientific papers. Consider the finding of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, who reported in 1994 that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with a high cholesterol.¹ Supporters of the cholesterol campaign consistently ignore his observation, or consider it as a rare exception, produced by chance among a huge number of studies finding the opposite.

But it is not an exception; there are now a large number of findings that contradict the lipid hypothesis. To be more specific, most studies of old people have shown that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for coronary heart disease. This was the result of my search in the Medline database for studies addressing that question.²Eleven studies of old people came up with that result, and a further seven studies found that high cholesterol did not predict all-cause mortality either.

Now consider that more than 90 % of all cardiovascular disease is seen in people above age 60 also and that almost all studies have found that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for women.² This means that high cholesterol is only a risk factor for less than 5 % of those who die from a heart attack.

But there is more comfort for those who have high cholesterol; six of the studies found that total mortality was inversely associated with either total or LDL-cholesterol, or both. This means that it is actually much better to have high than to have low cholesterol if you want to live to be very old.

High Cholesterol Protects Against Infection

Many studies have found that low cholesterol is in certain respects worse than high cholesterol. For instance, in 19 large studies of more than 68,000 deaths, reviewed by Professor David R. Jacobs and his co-workers from the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, low cholesterol predicted an increased risk of dying from gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases.³

Most gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases have an infectious origin. Therefore, a relevant question is whether it is the infection that lowers cholesterol or the low cholesterol that predisposes to infection? To answer this question Professor Jacobs and his group, together with Dr. Carlos Iribarren, followed more than 100,000 healthy individuals in the San Francisco area for fifteen years. At the end of the study those who had low cholesterol at the start of the study had more often been admitted to the hospital because of an infectious disease.^4,5 This finding cannot be explained away with the argument that the infection had caused cholesterol to go down, because how could low cholesterol, recorded when these people were without any evidence of infection, be caused by a disease they had not yet encountered? Isn´t it more likely that low cholesterol in some way made them more vulnerable to infection, or that high cholesterol protected those who did not become infected? Much evidence exists to support that interpretation.

Low Cholesterol and HIV/AIDS

Young, unmarried men with a previous sexually transmitted disease or liver disease run a much greater risk of becoming infected with HIV virus than other people. The Minnesota researchers, now led by Dr. Ami Claxton, followed such individuals for 7-8 years. After having excluded those who became HIV-positive during the first four years, they ended up with a group of 2446 men. At the end of the study, 140 of these people tested positive for HIV; those who had low cholesterol at the beginning of the study were twice as likely to test postitive for HIV compared with those with the highest cholesterol.⁶

Similar results come from a study of the MRFIT screenees, including more than 300,000 young and middle-aged men, which found that 16 years after the first cholesterol analysis the number of men whose cholesterol was lower than 160 and who had died from AIDS was four times higher than the number of men who had died from AIDS with a cholesterol above 240.⁷

Cholesterol and Chronic Heart Failure

Heart disease may lead to a weakening of the heart muscle. A weak heart means that less blood and therefore less oxygen is delivered to the arteries. To compensate for the decreased power, the heart beat goes up, but in severe heart failure this is not sufficient. Patients with severe heart failure become short of breath because too little oxygen is delivered to the tissues, the pressure in their veins increases because the heart cannot deliver the blood away from the heart with sufficient power, and they become edematous, meaning that fluid accumulates in the legs and in serious cases also in the lungs and other parts of the body. This condition is called congestive or chronic heart failure.

There are many indications that bacteria or other microorganisms play an important role in chronic heart failure. For instance, patients with severe chronic heart failure have high levels of endotoxin and various types of cytokines in their blood. Endotoxin, also named lipopolysaccharide, is the most toxic substance produced by Gram-negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Klebsiella, Salmonella, Serratia and Pseudomonas. Cytokines are hormones secreted by white blood cells in their battle with microorganisms; high levels of cytokines in the blood indicate that inflammatory processes are going on somewhere in the body.

The role of infections in chronic heart failure has been studied by Dr. Mathias Rauchhaus and his team at the Medical Department, Martin-Luther-University in Halle, Germany (Universitätsklinik und Poliklinik für Innere Medizin III, Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle). They found that the strongest predictor of death for patients with chronic heart failure was the concentration of cytokines in the blood, in particular in patients with heart failure due to coronary heart disease.⁸ To explain their finding they suggested that bacteria from the gut may more easily penetrate into the tissues when the pressure in the abdominal veins is increased because of heart failure. In accordance with this theory, they found more endotoxin in the blood of patients with congestive heart failure and edema than in patients with non-congestive heart failure without edema, and endotoxin concentrations decreased significantly when the heart’s function was improved by medical treatment.⁹

A simple way to test the functional state of the immune system is to inject antigens from microorganisms that most people have been exposed to, under the skin. If the immune system is normal, an induration (hard spot) will appear about 48 hours later at the place of the injection. If the induration is very small, with a diameter of less than a few millimeters, this indicates the presence of “anergy,” a reduction in or failure of response to recognize antigens. In accordance, anergy has been found associated with an increased risk of infection and mortality in healthy elderly individuals, in surgical patients and in heart transplant patients.¹⁰

Dr. Donna Vredevoe and her group from the School of Nursery and the School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles tested more than 200 patients with severe heart failure with five different antigens and followed them for twelve months. The cause of heart failure was coronary heart disease in half of them and other types of heart disease (such as congenital or infectious valvular heart disease, various cardiomyopathies and endocarditis) in the rest. Almost half of all the patients were anergic, and those who were anergic and had coronary heart disease had a much higher mortality than the rest.¹⁰

Now to the salient point: to their surprise the researchers found that mortality was higher, not only in the patients with anergy, but also in the patients with the lowest lipid values, including total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol as well as triglycerides.

The latter finding was confirmed by Dr. Rauchhaus, this time in co-operation with researchers at several German and British university hospitals. They found that the risk of dying for patients with chronic heart failure was strongly and inversely associated with total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and also triglycerides; those with high lipid values lived much longer than those with low values.^11,12

Other researchers have made similar observations. The largest study has been performed by Professor Gregg C. Fonorow and his team at the UCLA Department of Medicine and Cardiomyopathy Center in Los Angeles.¹³ The study, led by Dr. Tamara Horwich, included more than a thousand patients with severe heart failure. After five years 62 percent of the patients with cholesterol below 129 mg/l had died, but only half as many of the patients with cholesterol above 223 mg/l.

When proponents of the cholesterol hypothesis are confronted with findings showing a bad outcome associated with low cholesterol—and there are many such observations—they usually argue that severely ill patients are often malnourished, and malnourishment is therefore said to cause low cholesterol. However, the mortality of the patients in this study was independent of their degree of nourishment; low cholesterol predicted early mortality whether the patients were malnourished or not.

Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome

As discussed in The Cholesterol Myths (see sidebar), much evidence supports the theory that people born with very high cholesterol, so-called familial hypercholesterolemia, are protected against infection. But if inborn high cholesterol protects against infections, inborn low cholesterol should have the opposite effect. Indeed, this seems to be true.

Children with the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome have very low cholesterol because the enzyme that is necessary for the last step in the body’s synthesis of cholesterol does not function properly. Most children with this syndrome are either stillborn or they die early because of serious malformations of the central nervous system. Those who survive are imbecile, they have extremely low cholesterol and suffer from frequent and severe infections. However, if their diet is supplemented with pure cholesterol or extra eggs, their cholesterol goes up and their bouts of infection become less serious and less frequent.¹⁴

Laboratory Evidence

Laboratory studies are crucial for learning more about the mechanisms by which the lipids exert their protective function. One of the first to study this phenomenon was Dr Sucharit Bhakdi from the Institute of Medical Microbiology, University of Giessen (Institut für Medizinsche Mikrobiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), Germany along with his team of researchers from various institutions in Germany and Denmark.¹⁵

Staphylococcus aureus α-toxin is the most toxic substance produced by strains of the disease-promoting bacteria called staphylococci. It is able to destroy a wide variety of human cells, including red blood cells. For instance, if minute amounts of the toxin are added to a test tube with red blood cells dissolved in 0.9 percent saline, the blood is hemolyzed, that is the membranes of the red blood cells burst and hemoglobin from the interior of the red blood cells leaks out into the solvent. Dr. Bhakdi and his team mixed purified α-toxin with human serum (the fluid in which the blood cells reside) and saw that 90 percent of its hemolyzing effect disappeared. By various complicated methods they identified the protective substance as LDL, the carrier of the so-called bad cholesterol. In accordance, no hemolysis occurred when they mixed α-toxin with purified human LDL, whereas HDL or other plasma constituents were ineffective in this respect.

Dr. Willy Flegel and his co-workers at the Department of Transfusion Medicine, University of Ulm, and the Institute of Immunology and Genetics at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany (DRK-Blutspendezentrale und Abteilung für Transfusionsmedizin, Universität Ulm, und Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg) studied endotoxin in another way.¹⁶ As mentioned, one of the effects of endotoxin is that white blood cells are stimulated to produce cytokines. The German researchers found that the cytokine-stimulating effect of endotoxin on the white blood cells disappeared almost completely if the endotoxin was mixed with human serum for 24 hours before they added the white blood cells to the test tubes. In a subsequent study¹⁷ they found that purified LDL from patients with familial hypercholesterolemia had the same inhibitory effect as the serum.

LDL may not only bind and inactivate dangerous bacterial toxins; it seems to have a direct beneficial influence on the immune system also, possibly explaining the observed relationship between low cholesterol and various chronic diseases. This was the starting point for a study by Professor Matthew Muldoon and his team at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They studied healthy young and middle-aged men and found that the total number of white blood cells and the number of various types of white blood cells were significantly lower in the men with LDL-cholesterol below 160 mg/dl (mean 88.3 mg/l),than in men with LDL-cholesterol above 160 mg/l (mean 185.5 mg/l).¹⁸ The researchers cautiously concluded that there were immune system differences between men with low and high cholesterol, but that it was too early to state whether these differences had any importance for human health. Now, seven years later with many of the results discussed here, we are allowed to state that the immune-supporting properties of LDL-cholesterol do indeed play an important role in human health.

Animal Experiments

The immune systems in various mammals including human beings have many similarities. Therefore, it is interesting to see what experiments with rats and mice can tell us. Professor Kenneth Feingold at the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and his group have published several interesting results from such research. In one of them they lowered LDL-cholesterol in rats by giving them either a drug that prevents the liver from secreting lipoproteins, or a drug that increases their disappearance. In both models, injection of endotoxin was followed by a much higher mortality in the low-cholesterol rats compared with normal rats. The high mortality was not due to the drugs because, if the drug-treated animals were injected with lipoproteins just before the injection of endotoxin, their mortality was reduced to normal.¹⁹

Dr. Mihai Netea and his team from the Departments of Internal and Nuclear Medicine at the University Hospital in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, injected purified endotoxin into normal mice, and into mice with familial hypercholesterolemia that had LDL-cholesterol four times higher than normal. Whereas all normal mice died, they had to inject eight times as much endotoxin to kill the mice with familial hypercholesterolemia. In another experiment they injected live bacteria and found that twice as many mice with familial hypercholesterolemia survived compared with normal mice.²⁰

Other Protecting Lipids

As seen from the above, many of the roles played by LDL-cholesterol are shared by HDL. This should not be too surprising considering that high HDL-cholesterol is associated with cardiovascular health and longevity. But there is more.

Triglycerides, molecules consisting of three fatty acids linked to glycerol, are insoluble in water and are therefore carried through the blood inside lipoproteins, just as cholesterol. All lipoproteins carry triglycerides, but most of them are carried by a lipoprotein named VLDL (very low-density lipoprotein) and by chylomicrons, a mixture of emulsified triglycerides appearing in large amounts after a fat-rich meal, particularly in the blood that flows from the gut to the liver.

For many years it has been known that sepsis, a life-threatening condition caused by bacterial growth in the blood, is associated with a high level of triglycerides. The serious symptoms of sepsis are due to endotoxin, most often produced by gut bacteria. In a number of studies, Professor Hobart W. Harris at the Surgical Research Laboratory at San Francisco General Hospital and his team found that solutions rich in triglycerides but with practically no cholesterol were able to protect experimental animals from the toxic effects of endotoxin and they concluded that the high level of triglycerides seen in sepsis is a normal immune response to infection.²¹ Usually the bacteria responsible for sepsis come from the gut. It is therefore fortunate that the blood draining the gut is especially rich in triglycerides.

Exceptions

So far, animal experiments have confirmed the hypothesis that high cholesterol protects against infection, at least against infections caused by bacteria. In a similar experiment using injections of Candida albicans, a common fungus, Dr. Netea and his team found that mice with familial hypercholesterolemia died more easily than normal mice.²² Serious infections caused by Candida albicans are rare in normal human beings; however, they are mainly seen in patients treated with immunosuppressive drugs, but the finding shows that we need more knowledge in this area. However, the many findings mentioned above indicate that the protective effects of the blood lipids against infections in human beings seem to be greater than any possible adverse effects.

Cholesterol as a Risk Factor

Most studies of young and middle-aged men have found high cholesterol to be a risk factor for coronary heart disease, seemingly a contradiction to the idea that high cholesterol is protective. Why is high cholesterol a risk factor in young and middle-aged men? A likely explanation is that men of that age are often in the midst of their professional career. High cholesterol may therefore reflect mental stress, a well-known cause of high cholesterol and also a risk factor for heart disease. Again, high cholesterol is not necessarily the direct cause but may only be a marker. High cholesterol in young and middle-aged men could, for instance, reflect the body’s need for more cholesterol because cholesterol is the building material of many stress hormones. Any possible protective effect of high cholesterol may therefore be counteracted by the negative influence of a stressful life on the vascular system.

Response to Injury

In 1976 one of the most promising theories about the cause of atherosclerosis was the Response-to-Injury Hypothesis, presented by Russell Ross, a professor of pathology, and John Glomset, a professor of biochemistry and medicine at the Medical School, University of Washington in Seattle.^23,24 They suggested that atherosclerosis is the consequence of an inflammatory process, where the first step is a localized injury to the thin layer of cells lining the inside of the arteries, the intima. The injury causes inflammation and the raised plaques that form are simply healing lesions.

Their idea is not new. In 1911, two American pathologists from the Pathological Laboratories, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Oskar Klotz and M.F. Manning, published a summary of their studies of the human arteries and concluded that “there is every indication that the production of tissue in the intima is the result of a direct irritation of that tissue by the presence of infection or toxins or the stimulation by the products of a primary degeneration in that layer.”²⁵ Other researchers have presented similar theories.²⁶

Researchers have proposed many potential causes of vascular injury, including mechanical stress, exposure to tobacco fumes, high LDL-cholesterol, oxidized cholesterol, homocysteine, the metabolic consequences of diabetes, iron overload, copper deficiency, deficiencies of vitamins A and D, consumption of trans fatty acids, microorganisms and many more. With one exception, there is evidence to support roles for all of these factors, but the degree to which each of them participates remains uncertain. The exception is of course LDL-cholesterol. Much research allows us to exclude high LDL-cholesterol from the list. Whether we look directly with the naked eye at the inside of the arteries at autopsy, or we do it indirectly in living people using x-rays, ultrasound or electron beams, no association worth mentioning has ever been found between the amount of lipid in the blood and the degree of atherosclerosis in the arteries. Also, whether cholesterol goes up or down, by itself or due to medical intervention, the changes of cholesterol have never been followed by parallel changes in the atherosclerotic plaques; there is no dose-response. Proponents of the cholesterol campaign often claim that the trials indeed have found dose-response, but here they refer to calculations between the mean changes of the different trials with the outcome of the whole treatment group. However, true dose-response demands that the individual changes of the putative causal factor are followed by parallel, individual changes of the disease outcome, and this has never occurred in the trials where researchers have calculated true dose-response.

A detailed discussion of the many factors accused of harming the arterial endothelium is beyond the scope of this article. However, the protective role of the blood lipids against infections obviously demands a closer look at the alleged role of one of the alleged causes, the microorganisms.

Is Atherosclerosis an Infectious Disease?

For many years scientists have suspected that viruses and bacteria, in particular cytomegalovirus and Chlamydia pneumonia (also named TWAR bacteria) participate in the development of atherosclerosis. Research within this area has exploded during the last decade and by January 2004, at least 200 reviews of the issue have been published in medical journals. Due to the widespread preoccupation with cholesterol and other lipids, there has been little general interest in the subject, however, and few doctors know much about it. Here I shall mention some of the most interesting findings.²⁶

Electron microscopy, immunofluorescence microscopy and other advanced techniques have allowed us to detect microorganisms and their DNA in the atherosclerotic lesions in a large proportion of patients. Bacterial toxins and cytokines, hormones secreted by the white blood cells during infections, are seen more often in the blood from patients with recent heart disease and stroke, in particular during and after an acute cardiovascular event, and some of them are strong predictors of cardiovascular disease. The same is valid for bacterial and viral antibodies, and a protein secreted by the liver during infections, named C-reactive protein (CRP), is a much stronger risk factor for coronary heart disease than cholesterol.

Clinical evidence also supports this theory. During the weeks preceding an acute cardiovascular attack many patients have had a bacterial or viral infection. For instance, Dr. Armin J. Grau from the Department of Neurology at the University of Heidelberg and his team asked 166 patients with acute stroke, 166 patients hospitalized for other neurological diseases and 166 healthy individuals matched individually for age and sex about recent infectious disease. Within the first week before the stroke, 37 of the stroke patients, but only 14 of the control individuals had had an infectious disease. In half of the patients the infection was of bacterial origin, in the other half of viral origin.²⁷

Similar observations have been made by many others, for patients with acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). For instance, Dr. Kimmo J. Mattila at the Department of Medicine, Helsinki University Hospital, Finland, found that 11 of 40 male patients with an acute heart attack before age 50 had an influenza-like infection with fever within 36 hours prior to admittance to hospital, but only 4 out of 41 patients with chronic coronary disease (such as recurrent angina or pervious myocardial infarction) and 4 out of 40 control individuals without chronic disease randomly selected from the general population.²⁸

Attempts have been made to prevent cardiovascular disease by treatment with antibiotics. In five trials treatment of patients with coronary heart disease using azithromyzin or roxithromyzin, antibiotics that are effective against Chlamydiapneumonia,yielded successful results; a total of 104 cardiovascular events occurred among the 412 non-treated patients, but only 61 events among the 410 patients in the treatment groups.^28a-e In one further trial a significant decreased progression of atherosclerosis in the carotid arteries occurred with antibiotic treatment.^28f However, in four other trials,^30a-d one of which included more than 7000 patients,^28d antibiotic treatment had no significant effect.

The reason for these inconsistent results may be that the treatment was too short (in one of the trials treatment lasted only five days). Also, Chlamydia pneumonia, the TWAR bacteria, can only propagate inside human cells and when located in white blood cells they are resistant to antibiotics.³¹

Treatment may also have been ineffective because the antibiotics used have no effect on viruses. In this connection it is interesting to mention a controlled trial performed by Dr. Enrique Gurfinkel and his team from Fundación Favaloro in Buenos Aires, Argentina.³² They vaccinated half of 301 patients with coronary heart disease against influenza, a viral disease. After six months 8 percent of the control patients had died, but only 2 percent of the vaccinated patients. It is worth mentioning that this effect was much better than that achieved by any statin trial, and in a much shorter time.

Does High Cholesterol Protect Against Cardiovascular Disease?

Apparently, microorganisms play a role in cardiovascular disease. They may be one of the factors that start the process by injuring the arterial endothelium. A secondary role may be inferred from the association between acute cardiovascular disease and infection. The infectious agent may preferably become located in parts of the arterial walls that have been previously damaged by other agents, initiating local coagulation and the creation of a thrombus (clot) and in this way cause obstruction of the blood flow. But if so, high cholesterol may protect against cardiovascular disease instead of being the cause!

In any case, the diet-heart idea, with its demonizing of high cholesterol, is obviously in conflict with the idea that high cholesterol protects against infections. Both ideas cannot be true. Let me summarize the many facts that conflict with the idea that high cholesterol is bad.

If high cholesterol were the most important cause of atherosclerosis, people with high cholesterol should be more atherosclerotic than people with low cholesterol. But as you know by now this is very far from the truth.

If high cholesterol were the most important cause of atherosclerosis, lowering of cholesterol should influence the atherosclerotic process in proportion to the degree of its lowering.

But as you know by now, this does not happen.

If high cholesterol were the most important cause of cardiovascular disease, it should be a risk factor in all populations, in both sexes, at all ages, in all disease categories, and for both heart disease and stroke. But as you know by now, this is not the case

I have only two arguments for the idea that high cholesterol is good for the blood vessels, but in contrast to the arguments claiming the opposite they are very strong. The first one stems from the statin trials. If high cholesterol were the most important cause of cardiovascular disease, the greatest effect of statin treatment should have been seen in patients with the highest cholesterol, and in patients whose cholesterol was lowered the most. Lack of dose-response cannot be attributed to the knowledge that the statins have other effects on plaque stabilization, as this would not have masked the effect of cholesterol-lowering considering the pronounced lowering that was achieved. On the contrary, if a drug that effectively lowers the concentration of a molecule assumed to be harmful to the cardiovascular system and at the same time exerts several beneficial effects on the same system, a pronounced dose-response should be seen.

On the other hand, if high cholesterol has a protective function, as suggested, its lowering would counterbalance the beneficial effects of the statins and thus work against a dose-response, which would be more in accord with the results from the various trials.

I have already mentioned my second argument, but it can’t be said too often: High cholesterol is associated with longevity in old people. It is difficult to explain away the fact that during the period of life in which most cardiovascular disease occurs and from which most people die (and most of us die from cardiovascular disease), high cholesterol occurs most often in people with the lowest mortality. How is it possible that high cholesterol is harmful to the artery walls and causes fatal coronary heart disease, the commonest cause of death, if those whose cholesterol is the highest, live longer than those whose cholesterol is low?

To the public and the scientific community I say, “Wake up!”

References
1. Krumholz HM and others. Lack of association between cholesterol and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity and all-cause mortality in persons older than 70 years. Journal of the American Medical Association 272, 1335-1340, 1990.
2. Ravnskov U. High cholesterol may protect against infections and atherosclerosis.Quarterly Journal of Medicine 96, 927-934, 2003.
3. Jacobs D and others. Report of the conference on low blood cholesterol: Mortality associations. Circulation 86, 1046–1060, 1992.
4. Iribarren C and others. Serum total cholesterol and risk of hospitalization, and death from respiratory disease. International Journal of Epidemiology 26, 1191–1202, 1997.
5. Iribarren C and others. Cohort study of serum total cholesterol and in-hospital incidence of infectious diseases. Epidemiology and Infection 121, 335–347, 1998.
6. Claxton AJ and others. Association between serum total cholesterol and HIV infection in a high-risk cohort of young men. Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes and human retrovirology 17, 51–57, 1998.
7. Neaton JD, Wentworth DN. Low serum cholesterol and risk of death from AIDS.AIDS 11, 929–930, 1997.
8. Rauchhaus M and others. Plasma cytokine parameters and mortality in patients with chronic heart failure. Circulation 102, 3060-3067, 2000.
9. Niebauer J and others. Endotoxin and immune activation in chronic heart failure.Lancet 353, 1838-1842, 1999.
10. Vredevoe DL and others. Skin test anergy in advanced heart failure secondary to either ischemic or idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. American Journal of Cardiology 82, 323-328, 1998.
11. Rauchhaus M, Coats AJ, Anker SD. The endotoxin-lipoprotein hypothesis.Lancet 356, 930–933, 2000.
12. Rauchhaus M and others. The relationship between cholesterol and survival in patients with chronic heart failure. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 42, 1933-1940, 2003.
13. Horwich TB and others. Low serum total cholesterol is associated with marked increase in mortality in advanced heart failure. Journal of Cardiac Failure 8, 216-224, 2002.
14. Elias ER and others. Clinical effects of cholesterol supplementation in six patients with the Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS). American Journal of Medical Genetics 68, 305–310, 1997.
15. Bhakdi S and others. Binding and partial inactivation of Staphylococcus aureus a-toxin by human plasma low density lipoprotein. Journal of Biological Chemistry258, 5899-5904, 1983.
16. Flegel WA and others. Inhibition of endotoxin-induced activation of human monocytes by human lipoproteins. Infection and Immunity 57, 2237-2245, 1989.
17. Weinstock CW and others. Low density lipoproteins inhibit endotoxin activation of monocytes. Arteriosclerosis and Thrombosis 12, 341-347, 1992.
18. Muldoon MF and others. Immune system differences in men with hypo- or hypercholesterolemia. Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology 84, 145-149, 1997.
19. Feingold KR and others. Role for circulating lipoproteins in protection from endotoxin toxicity. Infection and Immunity 63, 2041-2046, 1995.
20. Netea MG and others. Low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient mice are protected against lethal endotoxemia and severe gram-negative infections. Journal of Clinical Investigation 97, 1366-1372, 1996.
21. Harris HW, Gosnell JE, Kumwenda ZL. The lipemia of sepsis: triglyceride-rich lipoproteins as agents of innate immunity. Journal of Endotoxin Research 6, 421-430, 2001.
22. Netea MG and others. Hyperlipoproteinemia enhances susceptibility to acute disseminated Candida albicans infection in low-density-lipoprotein-receptor-deficient mice. Infection and Immunity 65, 2663-2667, 1997.
23. Ross R, Glomset JA. The pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. New England Journal of Medicine 295, 369-377, 1976.
24. Ross R. The pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and update. New England Journal of Medicine 314, 488-500, 1986.
25. Klotz O, Manning MF. Fatty streaks in the intima of arteries. Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology. 16, 211-220, 1911.
26. At least 200 reviews about the role of infections in atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease have been published; here are a few of them: a) Grayston JT, Kuo CC, Campbell LA, Benditt EP. Chlamydia pneumoniae strain TWAR and atherosclerosis. European Heart Journal Suppl K, 66-71, 1993. b) Melnick JL, Adam E, Debakey ME. Cytomegalovirus and atherosclerosis. European Heart Journal Suppl K, 30-38, 1993. c) Nicholson AC, Hajjar DP. Herpesviruses in atherosclerosis and thrombosis. Etiologic agents or ubiquitous bystanders? Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology 18, 339-348, 1998. d) Ismail A, Khosravi H, Olson H. The role of infection in atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. A new therapeutic target. Heart Disease 1, 233-240, 1999. e) Kuvin JT, Kimmelstiel MD. Infectious causes of atherosclerosis. f.) Kalayoglu MV, Libby P, Byrne GI. Chlamydia pneumoniaas an emerging risk factor in cardiovascular disease. Journal of the American Medical Association 288, 2724-2731, 2002.
27. Grau AJ and others. Recent bacterial and viral infection is a risk factor for cerebrovascular ischemia. Neurology 50, 196-203, 1998.
28. Mattila KJ. Viral and bacterial infections in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Journal of Internal Medicine 225, 293-296, 1989.
29. The successful trials: a) Gurfinkel E. Lancet 350, 404-407, 1997. b) Gupta S and others. Circulation 96, 404-407, 1997. c) Muhlestein JB and others. Circulation 102, 1755-1760, 2000. d) Stone AFM and others. Circulation 106, 1219-1223, 2002. e) Wiesli P and others. Circulation 105, 2646-2652, 2002. f) Sander D and others. Circulation 106, 2428-2433, 2002.
30. The unsuccessful trials: a) Anderson JL and others. Circulation 99, 1540-1547, 1999. b) Leowattana W and others. Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand 84 (Suppl 3), S669-S675, 2001. c) Cercek B and others. Lancet 361, 809-813, 2003. d) O’Connor CM and others. Journal of the American Medical Association. 290, 1459-1466, 2003.
31. Gieffers J and others. Chlamydia pneumoniae infection in circulating human monocytes is refractory to antibiotic treatment. Circulation 104, 351-356, 2001
32. Gurfinkel EP and others. Circulation 105, 2143-2147, 2002.
About the Author
Dr. Ravnskov is the author of The Cholesterol Myths and chairman of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (thincs.org).
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Read the complete article here.

My cardiologist says.....

In answer to a question about cholesterol.

Q - I'm ... confused about getting cholesterol numbers down. In my reading I've discovered that there is a "cholesterol myth" - Uffe Ravnskov, Gary Taubes, etc. that says that cholesterol does not cause heart disease. Why am I trying to get these numbers if cholesterol does not cause heart disease? I cannot take statins so I'm concerned about this subject.


A - That's right: The issue is not cholesterol, nor was it ever cholesterol.

The issue is the kinds, numbers, and behavior of the complex particles in the blood that can contribute to atherogenesis, i.e, atherosclerotic plaque formation. They contain cholesterol, but the cholesterol component is not the crucial causal factor. These are, of course, lipoproteins.

Small LDL particles, for instance, have a unique conformation that makes the lysine residues on the resident apo B molecule more prone to glycation. Glycated small LDL particles are more prone to oxidation. The resultant glycoxidated small LDL molecule, in turn, is more readily able to cross intercellular barriers, is more adherent to the components of plaque, are poorly recognized by the liver receptor for LDL particles and thereby "lives" in the bloodstream much longer than larger LDL particles, and are avidly taken up by inflammatory cells.

So viewing this as a "cholesterol" problem is an incredible oversimplification that tends to focus on the wrongs things, such as statin drugs alone to "reduce cholesterol."

here

The Diet Heart Hypothesis was just that - a Hypothesis.... a thought up scheme, never proven.

======================================
Sunday, January 23, 2011 Here Comes Another $$$ Spinner

Seems there is talk in the food industry that the Fat is bad for you hypothesis is about to lie down and die! Can't say I am sorry, should have happened years ago - sorry Ancel Old Chap!

But why now you may ask...... what could possibly bring on such a huge about face? Couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that patents on some pharmaceuticals like Lipitor are or have already run out could it?

The Diet Heart Hypothesis was just that - a Hypothesis.... a thought up scheme, never proven. But because it was making so much money for the investors and companies involved, they fought long and hard to get everyman (grin) and his dog on board and popping their pills.

Now the pills will not make them so much money, they have to look for the next BIG blockbuster drug, with its own peculiar methodology and religion ... to drum up fervor and zeal, thereby making gazillions for the companies and their investors.

Watch out folks the fat is bad religion is about to have a HUGE about face! (please note italics are from the actual article)

However the very foundation of this hypothesis was shaken to the core at the AHA annual conference in Chicago in 2010. Amid great excitement, the pharmaceutical giant Merck revealed results of a preliminary safety study for a drug that could usher in a new age for treatment and prevention of heart disease: a cholesterol raising drug! In the safety study lasting 18 months with 1,600 participants, total cholesterol was raised 20% by the drug anacetrapib without any side effects. An efficacy trail of 30,000 participants with several cardiovascular end-points is scheduled to begin in 2011 and end in 2015 to verify if cholesterol raising can reduce actual incidence of heart disease. But the search for cholesterol raising drugs is not new. Most of the cholesterol lowering statin drugs have reached the limits of their heart protective capabilities (and are near the end of their patent lives). For several years drug companies have been quietly searching for the next blockbuster that will be more effective than statins. One class of candidates is cholesterol raising drugs.

Get ready to throw away your Lipitor folks, they will have a new drug to prescribe you in the near future. I can't wait to see how this unfolds, how they will explain away the untold damage they have done to humankind, by insisting we lower our cholesterol numbers, to unhealthy levels.

But haven't we been told over and over to lower our cholesterol, not increase it? Yes, but the cholesterol story has been repeatedly oversimplified. Total cholesterol is made up of 2 major components, good cholesterol (LDL) and bad cholesterol (HDL). So when your doctor tells you to lower your cholesterol, he really means lower your bad cholesterol – if you inadvertently lower your good cholesterol you could increase your risk of heart disease. The statin drugs selectively lower the bad cholesterol without lowering the good – and they work, reducing risk of heart attack by about 30%. The new class of drugs is designed to increase the good cholesterol, without increasing the bad. So in this case increasing cholesterol is a good thing. The scientific community is hoping that the upcoming Merck study will show a further reduction in risk of heart attack similar in magnitude to the statins – a real breakthrough.

As far as I am concerned, that statement above in red (coloured by me) is a barefaced lie, manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry to keep doctors pushing these drugs onto their patients!

Where does this leave the diet heart hypothesis, saturated fat and the simplified "lower your cholesterol" story? It leaves it in deep trouble. The advent of drugs that increase good cholesterol and thereby reduce risk of heart disease (yet to be proven), will force scientists to take another look at the effects of food ingredients on good cholesterol, not just the total and the bad. Applying this new approach could have a significant impact on national dietary recommendations that are designed to reduce risk of heart disease.

Ohhhh I can hardly wait to see the advertising campaign they work up for this new scheme. Hopefully they will turn the Food Pyramid upside down, while at the same time telling us that fats are good for us! I can dream can't I?

A large body of data showing the effect of food ingredients on both good and bad cholesterol has already been generated over the last 40 years. So far, the evaluation of this data has mostly focused on the bad cholesterol, while neglecting or even ignoring data for good cholesterol. But a review of the data for saturated fat gives a very unexpected result. The food component that increases good cholesterol the most is saturated fat! Yes, the same "artery clogging" saturated fat that has been demonized for decades. Although saturated fat still raises bad cholesterol, it appears that it raises good cholesterol by an equivalent amount and the effect of the bad cholesterol is mostly cancelled out. In this scenario saturated fat is expected to have little or no effect on risk of heart disease.

UFFE was right folks. Eat fat and live!

But good and bad cholesterol are components of blood, and not actual disease. What about direct evidence for the effect of saturated fat on incidence of heart disease? Early in 2010 a large human study measuring the link between intake of food components and heart disease was published. The study included over 340,000 people spanning 23 years. Here is what the authors said about saturated fat: "…there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD." Or in plain English - saturated fats have no effect on heart disease. Although this statement appears to fly in the face of everything we have been taught for decades, it corresponds exactly with powerful ability of saturated fat to increase good cholesterol. Neglect of the positive effect of saturated fat on good cholesterol has made it look worse that it really is.

A convincing body of evidence already exists that saturated fat is not as bad as once thought. Nevertheless public policy continues to demand further big reductions in saturated fat intake. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) recommended reducing saturates by 5% of the diet. If this huge reduction was ever implemented, the US dairy and meat industries - the main dietary source of saturated fat - would be severely damaged, and all for nothing. Isn't it time to abandon the failed Diet Heart Hypothesis and focus our resources on issues that really make a difference to public health?

The Diet Heart Hypothesis is DEAD folks..... time we buried it and moved on.... be be very very careful, they will make a pill, another blockbuster drug to raise your HDL folks..... when all you need to do is reduce your carbohydrates, white breads, simple starches, junk foods etc, and go back to eating good health fats again.

I wonder how they will breed the fat back into the food chain? Could it be as simple as feeding cattle on grass, and stopping the hormones?

Above Article from: Food Processing.com
Also worth a read:
The Dirty Little Secret of the Diet-Heart Hypothesis
WHY THE CHOLESTEROL-HEART DISEASE THEORY IS WRONG  Dr. Malcolm Kendrick M.D.

Dr Mercola on Cholesterol medications.

Dr Mercola 's article nearly a year ago has some good points in this whole issue.

I have said that the only statin proven to actually prevent heart attacks is high dose Baycol. You die of liver failure before you have the chance to  have the heart attack!

======================================================

Tens of millions of Americans are taking cholesterol-lowering drugs—mostly statins—and some "experts" claim that many millions more should be taking them.

I couldn't disagree more.

Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, that is, they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase). The fact that statin drugs cause side effects is well established—there are now 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to increased cancer risk.

For starters, reported side effects include:

•Muscle problems, polyneuropathy (nerve damage in the hands and feet), and rhabdomyolysis (a serious degenerative muscle tissue condition)

•Anemia

•Acidosis

•Sexual dysfunction

•Immune depression

•Pancreas or liver dysfunction, including a potential increase in liver enzymes

•Cataracts

Muscle problems are the best known of statin drugs' adverse side effects, but cognitive problems and memory loss are also widely reported. A spectrum of other problems, ranging from blood glucose elevations to tendon problems, can also occur. There is evidence that taking statins may even increase your risk for Lou Gehrig's disease.

Statins currently available on the U.S. market are:

•Advicor (lovastatin with niacin) – Abbott

•Altoprev (lovastatin) – Shionogi Pharma

•Caduet [atorvastatin with amlodipine (Norvasc)] – Pfizer

•Crestor (rosuvastatin) - AstraZeneca

•Lescol (fluvastatin) – Novartis

•Lipitor (atorvastatin) - Pfizer

•Mevacor (lovastatin) – Merck

•Pravachol (pravastatin) -- Bristol-Myers Squibb

•Simcor (niacin/imvastatin) – Abbott

•Vytorin (ezetimibe/simvastatin) – Merck/Schering-Plough

•Zocor (simvastatin) – Merck

Ninety-Nine Out of 100 People do Not Need Statin Drugs

That these drugs have proliferated the market the way they have is a testimony to the power of marketing, corruption and corporate greed, because the odds are very high— greater than 100 to 1—that if you're taking a statin, you don't really need it.

The ONLY subgroup that might benefit are those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol.

And, even more importantly, cholesterol is NOT the cause of heart disease.

If your physician is urging you to check your total cholesterol, then you should know that this test will tell you virtually nothing about your risk of heart disease, unless it is 330 or higher.

HDL percentage is a far more potent indicator for heart disease risk. Here are the two ratios you should pay attention to:

1.HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio: Should ideally be above 24 percent. If below 10 percent, you have a significantly elevated risk for heart disease.

2.Triglyceride/HDL Ratio: Should be below 2.

I have seen a number of people with total cholesterol levels over 250 who were actually at low risk for heart disease due to their elevated HDL levels. Conversely, I have seen many people with cholesterol levels under 200 who had a very high risk of heart disease, based on their low HDL.

Your body NEEDS cholesterol—it is important in the production of cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps your brain form memories and is vital to your neurological function.

There is also strong evidence that having too little cholesterol INCREASES your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson's disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide, and violent behavior.

Parents Beware: Outrageous New Push to Put Kids on Statin Drugs!

In a bold attempt to increase profits before the patent runs out, Pfizer has now introduced a chewable kid-friendly version of Lipitor. Its US patent for Lipitor expires in November 2011, and seeking to boost sales of the drug, children have become the new target market, and the conventional medical establishment is more than happy to oblige.

Researchers and many doctors are now calling for universal school screening of children to check for high cholesterol, to find those "in need of treatment." In addition, older siblings, parents and other family members might be prompted to get screened as well, the researchers say, which would uncover additional, previously undiagnosed adults in need of the drug.

This is clearly NOT the way to improve public health. On the contrary, it could produce a new, massive wave of extremely dire health consequences in just a few years time.

So rather than improving school lunches, which would cost about a dollar a day per child, they'd rather "invest" ten times that for tests and drugs that in no way, shape, or form address the root cause, which is an improper, unhealthy diet!

All they're doing is allowing all the industries to maintain or increase their profits: Big Pharma; Big Sugar; Big Corn and the processed food industry.

Who pays?

You, and your children! And in far more ways than one!

I will address this issue in depth in a future article, so please stay tuned…

If You Take Statins, You MUST Take CoQ10

If you take statin drugs without taking CoQ10, your health is at serious risk. Unfortunately, this describes the majority of people who take them in the United States.

CoQ10 is a cofactor (co-enzyme) that is essential for the creation of ATP molecules, which you need for cellular energy production. Organs such as your heart have higher energy requirements, and therefore require more CoQ10 to function properly.

Statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which can have devastating results.

Physicians rarely inform people of this risk and only occasionally advise them to take a CoQ10 supplement. As your body gets more and more depleted of CoQ10, you may suffer from fatigue, muscle weakness and soreness, and eventually heart failure.

Coenzyme Q10 is also very important in the process of neutralizing free radicals. So when your CoQ10 is depleted, you enter a vicious cycle of increased free radicals, loss of cellular energy, and damaged mitochondrial DNA.

If you decide to take a CoQ10 supplement and are over the age of 40, it is important to choose the reduced version, called ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is a FAR more effective form—I personally take 1-3 a day since it has such far ranging benefits.

Optimizing Your Cholesterol Levels, Naturally

There's really no reason to take statins and suffer the damaging health effects from these dangerous drugs.

The fact is that 75 percent of your cholesterol is produced by your liver, which is influenced by your insulin levels. Therefore, if you optimize your insulin level, you will automatically optimize your cholesterol.

It follows, then, that my primary recommendations for safely regulating your cholesterol have to do with modifying your diet and lifestyle:

•Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet. Eat the right foods for your nutritional type, and consume a good portion of your food raw.

•Make sure you are getting plenty of high quality, animal-based omega 3 fats, such as krill oil.

•Other heart-healthy foods include olive oil, coconut and coconut oil, organic raw dairy products and eggs, avocados, raw nuts and seeds, and organic grass-fed meats as appropriate for your nutritional type.

•Exercise daily. Make sure you incorporate peak fitness exercises, which also optimizes your human growth hormone (HGH) production.

•Address your emotional challenges. My favorite technique for stress management is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

•Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.

•Be sure to get plenty of good, restorative sleep.

Unlike statin drugs, which lower your cholesterol at the expense of your health, these lifestyle strategies represent a holistic approach that will benefit your overall health—which includes a healthy cardiovascular system.

GET THIS FREE REPORT NOW!Download my FREE guide on The Low-down on Cholesterol: Why You Need It - and The Real Methods to Get Your Levels Right. Enter your email address to download the FREE report right now.

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900 Studies Show Statin Drugs are Dangerous
6 Ways to Reduce Inflammation -- Without a Statin Drug
The science behind statin drugs is failing to prove a benefit; here's what can really do the trick.
Statin Drugs: Another Industry-Sponsored Study, Another Deceptive Result
Is it true that statin drugs can lower your risk of heart attacks by over 50 percent, or is this simply another deceptive marketing ploy?
Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Will Wreck Your Muscles
Researchers continue to find more reasons to avoid these drugs like the plague.
Cholesterol Pill Taken by Thousands Causes Cancer
Why increase your risk of dying from cancer when treating high cholesterol has nothing to do with taking a drug?
Why are Cholesterol Drugs Being Recommended for 8 Year Olds?
Are these dangerous drugs ever really necessary to protect kids' hearts?
1.5 Million More People to Be Prescribed Useless Cholesterol Drugs
Are you on the new drug "hit" list?
How You Have Been Fooled By Good and Bad Cholesterol
Even most physicians are confused about this important health concern.
How Statin Drugs Wreck Your Muscles
Yet another reason to avoid these drugs like the plague.
Popular Cholesterol Drug Found to Have No Medical Benefits
Lipitor Ads Spark Congressional Probe
Drug giant Pfizer is in hot water again over fraudulent peddling of their unnecessary, toxic solutions.
Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs: What Are Drugmakers Hiding?
Another $4-billion scam resulting in nearly 1 million unnecessary prescriptions.
Why Doctors Often Dismiss Drug Side Effects
What Happens When Your Cholesterol Goes Too Low?
The Next Statin Scam: Preventing Strokes
Even if statin drugs prevent strokes from recurring, you'll still die earlier from other causes.
Fish Oil Works Better Than Statins at Improving HDL Cholesterol
Omega-3 fats do more to normalize your cholesterol than Lipitor and the other statin drugs, and are safer and less expensive as well.
Lawsuits Debate Lasting Lipitor Damage
Why use dangerous statin drugs when simple, highly effective alternatives that treat the true cause are readily available?
Will Statins Help ''Cure'' ED?
Statin drugs could improve ED -- but the solution is worse than the disease.
Could a Generic Zocor ''Hurt'' The Statin Market?

Statin drugs could improve ED -- but the solution is worse than the disease.
Statin Drugs do NOT Prevent Cancer
It has now been conclusively shown that the cholesterol-lowering drugs have no effect whatsoever on cancer, despite previous arguments to the contrary.
FDA Screws Up Again
The FDA rejected a petition to have the controversial cholesterol drug Crestor, linked to serious muscle damage, withdrawn from the market. How can this...
Lipitor, Severe Diabetes a Fatal Combination
If you struggle with high cholesterol, you will certainly want to review my latest comments on using Lipitor to treat it.
Generic or Name Brand: Do You Really Need a Statin Drug?
Cheaper statin drugs are not good news for you, even if they paid you to take these drugs you should refuse.
Lipitor No Better Than Other Cholesterol Drugs
In spite of the manufacturer's claims, Lipitor is not only not as effective but may also have worse side effects.
Statins do Absolutely Nothing for Alzheimer's & Dementia
Cholesterol's Contribution to Prostate Cancer
High cholesterol is likely to increases your risk of prostate cancer. Although statin drugs lower cholesterol levels, they are not your best option to reduce...
Crestor and Other Statins: Are They Really Worth the Risk?
The statin Crestor is being promoted as the "best" statin drug on the market, but are any of these cholesterol-lowering drugs worth the serious risks they pose? And, is lowering cholesterol really the best way to prevent heart disease in the first place?
Will Statins Become OTC Drugs in the U.S.?
Merck's attempt to sell their cholesterol-lowering drug Mevacor over the counter has some experts worried. Find out why this attempt has been called "a very bad idea."
More Insane Uses for Statin Drugs
Do you have statins in your medicine cabinet? Find out which statins were removed from pharmacy shelves because of dangerous side effects.
The Truth About Crestor: Is Crestor Dangerous And, if so, Why?
The intensive marketing of the super-strong cholesterol-lowering statin drug is setting off warning bells among many doctors and patients. Is Crestor putting you at risk?
The Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven't Been Told About Cholesterol-Lowering Medication
If you're one of the millions of Americans currently taking statin drugs, don't miss this important and revealing article. Find out what you haven't been told about statin drugs to lower cholesterol that could dramatically affect your health today and in the future.
Statins, Calcium a Deadly Mix
Even if cholesterol levels are under control with taking statins, you still might be at risk of having a heart attack. Find out how calcium build-up in the coronary arteries is counteracting the benefits of statins.
Cholesterol Lowering Drugs to Go Over the Counter
Some of the world's biggest drug companies have been busy trying to convince regulators to allow cholesterol-lowering statin drugs to be sold over the counter. See how the United States could be next in line after Britain in making the move to selling cholesterol-lowering drugs over the counter
Will Cholesterol Drugs go Over the Counter Soon?

Dangerous statin drugs, used by millions of Americans to lower cholesterol, may soon be available over the counter. Find out why these drugs are not a good way to normalize your cholesterol.
Safety Concerns Surround the Latest Statin, Crestor

Some experts are concerned by this drug's potential serious side effects. Find out how to lower your cholesterol naturally and avoid dangerous statin drugs.
Cholesterol Drugs Actually Cause Heart Disease

Cholesterol drugs are prescribed for millions of people even though they lead to a life-threatening deficiency of CoQ10, which can actually cause heart failure.
'Experts' Recommend Higher Doses of Cholesterol Drugs
'Experts' say using high doses of cholesterol drugs can reduce the risk of heart attack, bypass surgery and chest pains. Find out how this could affect your physical and financial status.
The Cure for High Cholesterol--Hint it is NOT a Drug
Avoid using statin drugs to lower cholesterol levels with these natural solutions and reap great health as a side effect. If you or someone you know has high cholesterol this is a must read.
New Cholesterol Guidelines Issued
New federal guidelines have changed the "normal" range for cholesterol so now even more people will be put on cholesterol-lowering drugs.
New Cholesterol Guidelines for Converting Healthy People into Patients
Instead of preventing cardiovascular disease, the new guidelines may transform healthy individuals into unhappy hypochondriacs obsessed with the chemical composition of their food and their blood, destroy the joy of eating, and divert health care money from the sick and the poor to the rich and the healthy.
Cholesterol Guidelines Fraught With Massive Conflict of Interest
Eight of the nine influential doctors responsible for forming new cholesterol guidelines may be blinded by dollar signs. It seems they have been making money from drug companies by urging patients to take their drugs.
Lunatic Recommendations For Statin Drug Use
"Experts" from the American College of Physicians recommended that most diabetics should be taking cholesterol-lowering medication to reduce their risk of having a heart attack--even if their cholesterol levels fell in the normal range.
More Reasons to Avoid Statin Drugs / Does Lipitor Raise Lp(a)?
Lipoprotein (a) is one of the strongest indicators for heart disease, yet very few doctors check their patients' Lp(a) levels. What's worse is that when they do, they often prescribe statin drugs as a solution to elevated levels.
Common Cholesterol Drug Lowers Cholesterol but Not Death Rate
In one of the largest cholesterol-drug trials ever conducted, statins did not lower death rates. Find out what you can do to lower your risk of heart disease, the number one killer in the United States.
Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs are Less Effective in Reality than in Trials
Cholesterol levels dropped one-third less than expected among statin users. People must take the pills in order for them to be effective and many forget or choose not to.
Cholesterol Drugs: How Expensive is Too Expensive?
It may be too expensive to treat every person who has high cholesterol with cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Better alternatives reviewed.
Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Suppress Immune System
Statins, have been found to suppress the immune system. In an interesting twist on the findings of this adverse effect, however, it is being hailed as a benefit. The researchers have focused on the fact that the drugs may be useful for treating transplant patients. However, how this immune suppression could affect the vast majority of patients taking the drugs is not discussed.
Low Cholesterol Causes Aggressive Behavior
Despite the fact that most people are worried about having cholesterol levels that are too high, yet another study has found that low cholesterol is actually associated with adverse behavioral effects such as aggression and depression.
Low Cholesterol Linked to Depression
Results of a study conducted by Dutch researchers provide additional evidence for a link between low cholesterol levels and an increased risk of depression in men.
HALF the population will be taking Statins
A prominent medical authority announced his prediction that 50 percent of the entire U.S. population could be taking statin medication.
Low Cholesterol Linked to Stroke Risk
If your cholesterol levels are too low, it may increase your risk of stroke.

Low Cholesterol Linked to Violence

Lowering cholesterol could trigger changes in brain chemistry that encourage violent behavior
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The Baycol Statin Recall and Safety Issue:
In August 2001, Bayer AG, the maker of Baycol (cerivastatin), a popular cholesterol-lowering drug used by about 700,000 Americans, pulled the medicine off the market after 31 people died from severe muscle breakdown, a well-recognized side effect of cholesterol-lowering drugs. Related articles follow:
Statins: Is the Danger in the Dose?
Here is the hard data on Baycol-associated adverse reactions. If you or someone you know is taking one of the statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, this is a "must-read" article by Jay Cohen, MD to help you understand the potential dangers that this exposes you to.
Baycol Pulled From Market as Numerous Deaths Linked to It
Baycol, a cholestrol-lowering drug (statin), has been voluntarily pulled off the market because of numerous deaths associated with its use.
The Baycol Recall: How Safe is Your Statin?
With the recall of Baycol, patients are now searching out a new drug to take its place, but are other statins really safe? Here are some precautions necessary for anyone taking Baycol or any statin.
Baycol: Another Fluoride Drug Bites the Dust
Baycol is just one of many fluoride drugs to be pulled from the market due to health hazards posed. Read about this and some of the others in this informative article written by Andreas Schuld and Wendy Small.

BMJ: Bayer faces potential fine over cholesterol lowering drug

Bayer might have to pay a fine to the German government of about $23,400 for withholding from the German authorities information on the drug's potentially fatal interaction with another drug.
Lipitor Tied to Liver, Kidney Injury, as Well as Muscle Damage.
It seems that Baycol is not alone among cholesterol lowering drugs in posing serious dangers to the public. A number of legal actions are also being pursued against Pfizer Inc., the manufacturer of the Lipitor.
Excerpts from Public Citizen's Health Research Group's Petition to Require a Box Warning on All HMG-CoA Reductase Inhibitors ("Statins"):

" ... Public Citizen, representing 135,000 consumers nationwide, hereby petitions the FDA pursuant to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act 21, U.S.C. Section 355(e)(3), and C.F.R. 10.30, to add a black box warning and additional consistent bolded warnings about this serious problem to the label of all statins marketed in the United States."
"Doctors and the public must be warned to immediately discontinue use of statin drugs at the onset of muscle pain, muscle tenderness, muscle weakness or tiredness."
"Prompt cessation of the use of statins at the first sign of muscle pain, muscle tenderness, muscle weakness or tiredness and prompt evaluation by a physician including a blood test for creatine phosphokinase (a measure of muscle destruction) may avoid the progression to more extensive muscle damage, rhabdomyolysis and death.
"Rhabdomyolysis has been reported with all statins currently marketed in the United States."
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About the Experts
Joseph Mercola, DO
Medical Director of the Natural Health Center and Mercola.com. Read about my complete background information.
Uffe Ravnskov, MD

Born 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark Graduated 1961 from the University of Copenhagen with an M.D. 1961-1967: Various appointments at surgical, roentgenological, neurological, pediatric and medical departments in Denmark and Sweden. 1968-1979: Various appointments at the Department of Nephrology, and the Department of Clinical Chemistry, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden. 1975-79: As an assistant professor at the Department of Nephrology. 1973: PhD at the University of Lund. 1979-2000: A private practitioner. Since 1979 an independent researcher. A specialist in internal medicine and nephrology. Honored by the Skrabanek Award 1998.
For more information about him, see Dr. Ravnskov's Web site.
Jay Cohen, M.D
Jay Cohen, M.D., is an associate professor of Family and Preventative Medicine and of Psychiatry at the University of California in San Diego. He is the author of two books and has numerous papers published in peer-reviewed journals. His book, Over Dose: The Case Against the Drug Companies, is an outstanding read.
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Read it at Dr Mercola's site here