Kristi Whitley

Healthy Living

If you knew how dangerous statin drugs are, how important cholesterol is, and how easy it is to lower it if it is too high, you would never take these drugs. A surprisingly easy way to get cataracts, diabetes, muscle pain or weakness, and/or sexual dysfunction is  by taking cholesterol-lowering meds, specifically ones ending in “statin”.
 
Dr. Joseph Mercola writes that one in four Americans are taking a statin and 99 out of 100 don’t need them.
 
I’m always amazed when someone tells me their cholesterol was 225 and they have to take meds for it now. WHAT? Did your doctor tell you that lowering your cholesterol is easy without drugs? Did your doctor tell you that the more cholesterol you eat the higher your number? Did your doctor tell you that plants don’t contain cholesterol, only animals and their byproducts (milk)? I didn’t think so. What about the fact that cholesterol is necessary for proper brain function? No? He didn’t tell you that? Shocker.
 
Why don’t doctors tell patients these things? Surveys of the American Medical Association show that doctors don’t try to convince us to change our habits because 1) they don’t think we will change, 2) they don’t know what to recommend, 3) they don’t want us to dislike them, 4) $37 BILLION is spent annually on cholesterol-lowering meds. That is plenty of money to buy the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association, and the hearts and minds of the American public.
 
Think about it. We don’t get high cholesterol because we are deficient in simvastatin, lovastatin, rosuvastatin, fluvastatin, atorvastatin, pitavastatin, all generic names for Lipitor, Crestor, Mevacor, Provacol, Lescol, Altocor, or Zocor and others.
 
Increase in Cancer
 
Serious side effects of statins occur more often than doctors or pharmaceutical companies will admit. In this article by GreenMedInfo “Cracking the Cholesterol Myth: How Statins Harm the Body and Mind” Dr. Kelly Brogan points out that the statistically significant increase in cancer incidence and death caused by statins far out weighs the minimal cardiovascular protection they may provide.  She says that, in one of the only long-term trials, there was a doubling of incidence of ductal and lobular breast cancer in women taking the drugs for more than ten years.
 
Muscle Damage
 
Dr. Brogan also points out that the incidence of muscle damage in patients taking statin drugs is much higher than the drug companies will admit. One study in 2006 found evidence of muscle damage in patients who never had a symptom, indicating that it could be universal and go undetected by doctors and patients.
 
Diabetes
 
Dr. Joseph Mercola says that the mechanism of action of a statin actually causes an increase in blood sugar. As the drug prevents excess ingested sugars and grains from being converted into cholesterol it sends them back into the blood stream thus raising the blood sugar. Doctors will then diagnose the patient with Type II diabetes and prescribe other drugs for that instead of removing the statin which caused it in the first place.
 
Another mechanism of action by which statins cause diabetes is increased insulin resistance. Insulin resistance sets off a firestorm of inflammatory diseases within the body including diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure, thyroid disruption, chronic fatigue, and much more.
 
300 Adverse Effects
 
Cancer, muscle damage, schizophrenia, sexual dysfunction, diabetes, liver dysfunction, cataracts, anemia, memory loss, and depression are just the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Mercola cites 900 studies proving the adverse effects of statins. Over 300 adverse effects have been directly linked to statins.
 
Dr. Russell Blaylock writes that the only patients who potentially benefit from statins are the truly sick patients with extensive cardiovascular disease. He says that, even then, the results are exactly the same as taking one aspirin a day. Further, since statins came out in the 1980’s incidence of heart attack and stroke have not gone down. If statins worked as well as the drug companies say they do the numbers would have fallen dramatically.
 
Dr. John McDougall cites this quote by John Abramson, MD, published in Lancet:
 
“Our analysis suggests that lipid-lowering statins should not be prescribed for true primary prevention in women of any age or for men older than 69 years. High-risk men aged 30-69 years should be advised that about 50 patients need to be treated for 5 years to prevent one event. In our experience, many men presented with this evidence do not choose to take a statin, especially when informed of the potential benefits of lifestyle modification on cardiovascular risk and overall health.”
 
Lifestyle Modification
 
Like Dr. Abramson and others say, lifestyle modification lowers cardiovascular risk factors AND other disease risk factors. Changing one’s eating habits will not only reduce one risk factor for heart disease, cholesterol, it will reduce others as well. It will lower blood pressure, reducing the risk of stroke. It will reduce inflammation, eliminating the disease altogether or reducing the risk for many diseases including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, lupus, fibromyalgia, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.
 
The biggest lifestyle modification you can make is reducing or eliminating animal products from the diet. It is also the easiest. Here are some tips to help.
 

• Make meat (any animal flesh, including fish, eggs, and chicken) a treat and only eat it on special occasions
• Center the meal around a salad or serving of beans
• Use Diaya or other non-dairy cheeses
• Use almond or other nut milks to replace milk, cream, and half-n-half
• Make a meal of five different vegetables, i.e. one type of beans, one starch, two cooked non-starch veggies like broccoli and squash, and a salad
• AFTER modifying the diet, add light exercise to change the ratio of LDL/HDL cholesterol, increase immunity, increase brain function, decrease injury and falls, increase overall wellbeing

 
Friends, this is a tiny snapshot of the dangers of taking statins to lower cholesterol. My sources are always available upon request. Please write and ask for them before you swallow these drugs.
 
All the best,
K

Psalm 1:6
6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Statin Dangers: Lowering Cholesterol Naturally