Blood Glucose Levels Emergency

Despite the unparalleled popularity of cholesterol-lowering medications in this country, as a population, older people with “high” cholesterol outlive those with low levels of cholesterol.  The reason may be two-fold: cholesterol itself is necessary and protective to health, and statin drugs can be quite harmful themselves.

An 81 year-old client of mine has been on statins for 12 years.  When I asked him why this was necessary, he wasn’t sure and said he has changed doctors several times in that period.  Not one of those doctors, or my client himself, had ever questioned his need for statins.  Such is the depth of the cholesterol/heart disease mythology in Western medicine.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics report, , one in four Americans over the age of 45 are taking a statin drug.  In 2010 we spent $12 billion on Liptor and Crestor alone, in addition to filling almost 30 million generic Simvastatin (Zocor) prescriptions.

The list of is long, and my client has many of them, including but not limited to:

• Chest pain
• Sleepiness
• Arthritis
• Leg cramps
• Asthma
• Insomnia           
• Decreased libido
• Dry skin
• Postural hypotension (dizziness upon standing quickly)
• Angina pectoris
• High blood pressure
• Gout
• Hypoglycemia
• Depression
• Memory loss

In this , and , and ,  and , and , instead of being a harbinger of death, high cholesterol predicts longevity rather than mortality in old people.  According to Uffe Ravnskov, M.D., cholesterol researcher and author of many books and articles on the subject, “The most likely explanation for these findings is that rather than promoting atherosclerosis, high cholesterol may be protective, possibly through its beneficial influence on the immune system.”  But cholesterol’s beneficial influence extends beyond the immune system.

Here are just some of the vital roles of cholesterol in the body:

• Helps maintain structural integrity of your cells
• Essential for cell-to-cell communication, i.e. cell function
• Necessary for synthesizing vitamin D (most Americans are deficient)
• Necessary for synthesizing bile acids, which help you digest fat and fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K
• Precursor to all steroid hormones: glucocorticoids for blood sugar regulation, mineralcorticoids for blood pressure regulation, and all the sex hormones.
• Important in formation of memories and cognitive ability

• Increase in all-cause mortality

This may impel you to ask the question, “If cholesterol is not the cause of the heart disease epidemic in this country, what is?”  In short, the increase in incidence of heart disease over the past century is directly related to the increase in consumption of processed foods: refined sugars, refined flours and refined oils.

Today’s nutritional landscape can be perplexing.  To learn more about how to optimize your health with real food, please .  An investment in your health pays a better return than any other.

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