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Let’s raise a glass to raising cholesterol, and see the cholesterol-lowering drugs for what they are, a dangerous, expensive, unnecessary and profitable hoax.
Boy, I’d hate to be Cholesterol these days. It seems like the whole medical community and all of the media and pharmaceutical companies have it in their crosshairs. But frankly, I’m increasing annoyed when I hear bad words about cholesterol, because it is am essential component to health.
To make matters worse, it is not just the general public that has been duped, through persistent repetition of dubious and incomplete information, the mainstream medical community has come along for this profitable ride. All of it on the backs of us, the unsuspecting public, who have spent $2 Billion each year on just Lipitor, and twice that on other statin drugs. All based on a lie.
As you know, I am always trying to sniff out “Truths” that collide with other Truths. Since two conflicting ideas can’t both occupy the same space, and can’t both be right, I start wondering and asking questions to get to the bottom of the story. Here is the Big Lie About Cholesterol. We’ve received a partially accurate picture of what cholesterol is, but a stunningly inaccurate and misleading picture of how it is related to health and the role that it plays in our bodies.
Working backwards, we might start with the findings of a 2005 study by the American Geriatrics Society. They found that the elderly in the study with lowered total cholesterol levels (less than 179 mg/dL) were at higher risk of death when compared with those with higher cholesterol (between 276 and 416 mg/dL). Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past dozen years, just hearing cholesterol numbers like 400 would have you dialing the mortuary to make funeral arrangements. But I said that those high total cholesterol numbers were positive, favoring increased life and not death. How could that be if cholesterol is such a killer. The simple fact is that it isn’t. We have been taught to watch cholesterol because pharmaceutical researchers found a product to lower it, and there formerly was no good “pill” to help prevent heart disease. Lowering cholesterol filled the void of having a quick fix, tangible activity that a doctor could prescribe and the pharmacy could dispense to ease apatient’s conscience about addressing heart disease. It is truly meaningless in terms of preventing actual heart disease, and is downright dangerous to promoting general health and wellbeing. It is fraught with nasty side effects. Furthermore, it is wickedly expensive.
The advocates for watching cholesterol hang their hat on something called the Framingham study, which followed 5,209 healthy men and women in Framingham, Massachusetts from 1949 through 1966. Subsequent studies followed later generations of these initial subjects. It was a well run research effort, and it greatly added to the base of information regarding prevention of heart disease, which was non existent in the 1950′s. It is the origin of the word “risk factor”. Prior to the study, health metrics such as blood pressure, arterial blockage and clogging and serum cholesterol were seen as normal parts of aging. The Framingham study, which is quoted in well over 1000 other journals and studies states the following conclusions: (read carefully) 1960′s Cigarette smoking, obesity, and elevated cholesterol combined with high blood pressure all increase the risk of heart disease. Exercise decreases the risk of heart disease. 1970-80′s Elevated blood pressure increases risk of stroke. Postmenopausal women are at higher risk of heart disease. Elevated HDL cholesterol lowers risk of heart disease. 2000-2002 High normal blood pressure (120-138/80-89) was shown to be a risk factor for heart disease. Obesity was shown to be a risk factor in heart disease.
Note. There was zero correlation with heart disease and elevated serum cholesterol.
This is the main research that the pharmaceutical industry uses to link elevated cholesterol to heart disease, but no such conclusion is ever stated or implied. The closest that we see is that, early in the study, when elevated cholesterol AND high blood pressure are both present, there is an increased risk of heart disease. Later studies however separated these two factors stating that the elevated blood pressure ALONE was a risk factor while Elevated HDL Cholesterol actually LOWERED THE RISK OF HEART DISEASE. That’s it.
Here are some facts. As is common in the current health care arena, treatments focus on patching up symptoms rather than addressing root causes that holistically improve health as well as cardiovascular health. I think that all of us would prefer to use a natural product that is inexpensive, highly effective and free from side effects to virtually bulletproof ourselves from heart disease. It does exist, I’ll talk about it later on, but it isn’t made by a Big Pharma company. All of us would certainly prefer that course over an expensive treatment, riddled with side effects such as indigestion, impotence, constipation and cramping. We’d also prefer the natural approach that heals the root cause of heart disease instead of interfering with the body’s mechanism for healing persistent cardiovascular damage. One of the functions of cholesterol is, in fact, the body’s response to injury of blood vessels. In looking at this narrow minded, non-holistic aspect of cholesterol, we neglect to see
Finally, when blood vessels become injured and damaged, cholesterol has a “bandaid” function to patch over the injury. Highly injured blood vessels will, hence, collect these cholesterol patches, which you’ve no doubt seen on TV as though they are the root cause of heart disease. The truth is that cholesterol is repairing disease, not causing it. One suspected major cause for blood vessel injury is the silica added to salt. This “sand” is irritating to the blood vessels, causing the cholesterol repair response. A 2011 study at Washington University in St Louis demonstrated that similar pitting occurs in insulin sensitive (diabetic) patients who lack a critical enzyme which promotes healthy arterial wall integrity. We need to address blood vessel injury, not try to neutralize out body’s healing response to it.
Finally, a positive note. Looking beyond the ingenious cholesterol sales ploy, what we really want are healthy levels of cholesterol and healthy blood vessels. Nobel Prize researchers, Ignarro, Rurchgott and Murad, in 1998, revealed the working of nitric oxide (NO), a naturally produced signalling molecule in the arteries that regulates and tones blood vessels. In dozens of research studies, it has been shown to be inversely correlated with heart disease risk. Put into English, the presence of nitric oxide (NO) in the body virtually bulletproofs an individual against heart disease.
One would think that the drug companies would jump on this, since it offers the promise to inexpensively eradicate heart disease, but unfortunately, that is not their business model. The statin drug, Lipitor, alone grossed over $14 Billion in revenue, and the total of the five drugs listed above reached well over $25 Billion. It is unlikely that an industry that commends itself for creating “the most profitable drug of all time” will seek an inexpensive cure for their market. Sadly, we are most valuable to the drug industry when we are “lifers” and constantly in ill health, treating symptoms and not finding solutions. It is not as though the pharmaceutical houses don’t know of NO. Their response to the natural vaso-dilating (blood vessel opening) effects of NO, that promotes healing and repair in the body, was to research how to limit the duration of its effects. This spun off to create the synthetic drug, sildenafil, which we’ve come to know as Viagra. Great to know that, in
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