Sebastian Rushworth MD: Is there any life left in the cholesterol hypothesis (a.k.a. the lipid hypothesis)? Is there anything left for serious scientists to cling to or is time for its mouldering corpse to end up on the trash heap of medical history, alongside lobotomy, bloodletting and the theory of the four humors? I was asked this question by a reader of this blog recently, and as it happens, a systematic review was recently published in Evidence Based Medicine (my favorite medical journal, mainly because it is edited by the brilliant Dr. Carl Heneghan) that definitively answers this question, so I thought it would be interesting to go through what the evidence says together.
As many readers will be aware, the cholesterol hypothesis is the idea that cardiovascular disease is caused by high levels of cholesterol in the blood stream. The hypothesis harks back to the early part of the twentieth century, when a Russian researcher named Nikolai Anitschkow fed a cholesterol rich diet to rabbits and found that they developed atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries, the process which in the long run leads to cardiovascular disease). Of course, rabbits and humans are very different species, with very different dietary preferences. Rabbits, being herbivores, normally have very little cholesterol in their diets, while humans, being omnivores, generally consume quite a bit of cholesterol. Regardless, the data was suggestive, and led to the hypothesis being formulated. more
SNIP: Reposting because I forgot to add the link to the article. 🤣
Sorry.
Thank you for the comments.
The human body requires cholesterol in order to produce vitamin D from sunlight. The root word “sterol” is related to “steroid”. The human body can’t produce vitamin D without cholesterol. And cholesterol is used for many other chemical reactions in the human body as well as in many steroidal hormones and other proteins.
Many studies show that a specific protein within cholesterol (lipo-protein A) is the culprit for most arterial blockages and the amino acid lysine helps prevent these particles from sticking to arteries.
https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20090609/lipoprotein-a-linked-to-heart-attacks#1
This can be defeated with specific nutrients in the diet. I’m so old I remember when eggs were supposed to be bad for you because they were “high” in cholesterol. Without cholesterol, we wouldn’t exist.
just another scam by Big Pharma that not only makes you penniless in the long run but keeps you coming back for more Big Pharma products because of all the built in side effects that ALL Big Pharma poisons MUST have in them because they are all for-profit businesses and they do NOT get rich by curing people.
Makes you wonder just how humans survived before Big Pharma existed huh? According to them they prolong life but the opposite is true in most cases.
Bubba’s bro
thanks
Cholesterol protects the body and also makes up a substantial part of the brain. I was told to take them and each kind had a serious or painful side effect. I will not touch them.
I have lots of anecdotal stories about the damage statins do to us but here are three.
My mother who never took a statin died at age 92. She had a 420 overall Cholesterol reading from the age of 70 when they 1st tested her.
A doc who used a faulty (800!!!!) Cholesterol reading gave my perfectly healthy buddy in his 40’s a stroke with an overdose of statins. Another guy in his 50’s I worked with was in so much pain from taking statins he could barely walk for months after stopping them due to the pain.
If you going to take that stuff you better be informed
and know what you are doing.
Ah but the pharma juju is powerful. Reviewing meds for my patients as they grow weaker and approach their dying process, struggling to swallow food and pills. Try to get family to agree to stop vitamin supplements, dementia meds, the statins…..
“Oh noooooooo Mom can’t stop that she has high cholesterol, doctor told us 28 years ago this was The Most Important Medication Ever”
@John–pain isn’t the only side effect; I developed vertigo for which no diagnosis was found, after starting on statins. After a couple of years on them my cardiologist looked at my blood work and took me off them, not for any other reason than I didn’t need them. Guess what disappeared about a month after going off them? Dizziness is one of those “side effects” in the tiny print in their commercials.
I put two and two together after one commercial didn’t remove the fine print after two seconds on the screen.
I’ve always suspected the cereal conglomerates of being behind the junk science that demonized traditional breakfast foods that contain cholesterol. Probably got help from the dairy industry. Adding vitamin D to milk doesn’t happen by accident. Cholesterol bad, sugar good.
This man asked What’s more important: to have nice, smooth margarine or to not kill people? https://www.mensjournal.com/features/60-years-fighting-trans-fats-20140210/
Seven years on this shit and every muscle and joint ached. I could hardly move at times especially after getting up from any resting position. I chalked it up to getting older but then I quit taking the crap. Six months now and I feel ten years younger.
What kills people early from CV disease is shit food, lardassedness, not enough exercise, smoking, stress, bad genes, and any combination thereof.
I lost a great mentor who died before his time because of statin poisoning. I’ve long ago considered many mindless physicians accessories to murder.
Answerman — The Big Food lobbying did this, yes. We had 60,000 chickens on the farm. We ate eggs morning, noon, night. Government nonsense did affect the price of eggs. My father, now in his 90s, still seethes. This week when the new primary care doctor told him he had high cholesterol and maybe should be on something, he responded “How many of your patients walk up the two flights of stairs to your office instead of taking the elevator. Do you even think to ask? For all you know, I had ‘high cholesterol’ when I was 35. I’m only going through this checkup in case I ever need a referral to a specialist, so let’s get on with it and cut the crap.”
years ago I had total cholesterol of 117. Yes 117 and I was sick. Docs kept telling that was fabulous and I was heart attack proof. Finally found a doctor who told me I needed to raise my cholesterol and had a fit at the other doctors. She was right. Once the total went to 180 I felt better. I recommend this book. I am sure many worthless MD’s would call this Doc a quack. I believe he speaks the truth. https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Doctor-Told-Me/dp/0999090518
A tale of 2 doctors:
#1) Freshly minted GP who can’t make a diagnosis without a specialist referral, but immediately prescribes statins if your LDL gets a few points above “normal”. One wonders if a lot of med students’ tuition is getting picked up by big pharma these days.
#2) Old school guy who says “LDL’s a little high; been hitting the late night Bluebell lately? Knock it of and start taking 2000units fish oil capsules & we’ll see how it looks next checkup.”
I love this guy.
Here’s the link to the article that is the foundation for this thread:
https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/09/08/is-the-cholesterol-hypothesis-dead/
Didn’t find it above, sorry if I missed it.
Thank you!
-MJA
My doc: Your cholesterol is elevated.
Me: And…?
Doc: There’s this med…
Me: No. Next.
Two weeks ago, I had an angiogram because of some symptoms that suggested maybe a blockage or two (or three). Cholesterol numbers high, but can’t take statins.
Angiogram showed only 1 blockage of 10%–too minor to roto rooter and my other arteries showed no blockages.
The only thing that I know is that I know we don’t know shit about a lot of things that the “experts” are flapping their gums at.
Always thought it was an attack on the beef and dairy industries
It’s not dead as long as there is money to be made by prescribing cholesterol lowering drugs. No matter how high the NNT (number-needed-to-treat to help one patient) while ignoring the number of people who have serious side effects from taking it.
https://www.thennt.com/nnt/statins-persons-low-risk-cardiovascular-disease/ .
Plus there’s all those food factories cranking out low fat foods [low fat or no fat; yogurt, potato chips, salad dressing, etc] but full of sugars so it won’t taste like crap, and warehouses full of it ready to be sold. That people have been told they ought to eat, and now demand.
I just know i will never take a statin unless my cholesterol is completely off the chart.
No offense, but i think the millions of people who are taking statins are nuts.
Thanks for your stories, guys and gals.
I have to add my story to this, too.
I took simvastatin for about 7 or 8 months. I had memory loss.
Like, I don’t mean I couldn’t find my keys or I forgot to turn off the light when I left the room. I mean like running the shower and then walking away for a while and then wandering back into the bathroom thinking, “WhoTF left the shower running?!” Then a few times, I was cooking and completely forgot I was cooking and I was sitting not 10 feet away from the stove.
I forgot words or forgot what they meant, or couldn’t use them in a sentence.
Then one day I just started to cry out of nowhere for no reason. Suspicious of the pills, I quit taking them. Within 4 days I was all back to normal. Stupidly, I tried taking a pill the following week for a few days to ‘make sure’ it was the cause. Yep. by day 2, all that shit came back. Fuck it. Not doing that anymore. No more statins. The pill before this one (crestor) had the left side of my throat swollen and a constant back ache. Doc only said, “Really? I Never heard of that before.”
Bitch, please. Don’t get high during business hours.
Last month, I considered telling the doc to switch me to a different pill. 3rd time’s the charm and whatnot. But I think I’m just going to call it a day and refuse further treatment on cholesterol.
*Vegas hands*
I wonder how many people have taken these pills and developed hideous side effects only to have a doctor give them pills to counteract the side effects instead of taking them off of the statins.
My doctor is a nice lady, but she’s dumb. And that’s dangerous for a specialist. lol. If I didn’t figure out my problem myself, I don’t know if she wouldn’t just give me a secondary pill to stop the side effects or just tell me I have whatever joe biden has. lol.
Doctors get benny’s from the pharmaceutical corporations. That alone should tell you to be careful.
That and they keep changing the cholesterol risk level lower and lower.
Or it’s true because they have white coats on and we know they would never lie. Nobody in the industry makes any money if you’re not sick all the time.I remember about 10 years ago somebody was telling me that they had a guy at the pharmaceutical convention stand up and said our goal is to have everyone over 45 on three to four medications.
How many people died from vioxx for years and they knew it was killing people?
Obviously cholesterol causes heart attacks since plants don’t have cholesterol and also don’t have heart attacks. . . and THIS is what more and more “science” reads like, zero clue about association vs causation.
I’ll keep my cholesterol and pliable cell walls thank you very much, because without it . . . I’d be a plant.
Wow – seeing this stuff, I’m glad I have not been following Drs. orders. I didn’t like the idea of taking a handful of pills everyday, so I modified my daily pills to the anti-cancer pill (that blocks something I can’t think of at the moment), a vitamin C and a 5mg Melatonin in the evening. I take a 1/2 pill for high blood pressure every now and then if I feel like it. I felt worse taking all those other pills than I do without.
Diet and exercise is making the biggest difference.
Went to the doctor a few years ago – I had the late middle age maladies so I got blood pressure pills, pills for high cholesterol, etc.
Problem: I hate taking pills. So I decided to eat better, exercise, get more sleep and lose some weight. Somewhere along the way, my pills ran out and I decided to not have the prescriptions refilled. At my next check-up, the doctor said my numbers were normal and there was no need to change the meds. That’s when I told her I hadn’t taken them for six months. It was a little awkward.
I think doctors are too eager to prescribe medications instead of imparting hard truths to their patients: have a better diet, get some exercise, and quit being a lazy lard ass. If things still need to be corrected, then so be it – but I don’t necessarily want to substitute what I should be doing for drugs just because it’s easier.
^^^”Diet and exercise is making the biggest difference.”
Amen brother!
I’ve had many doctors tell me (before they even check the cholesterol) that I should be on statins because it protects diabetics. That’s what they’re told. Like it’s all the rage.
Uh huh.
Well, you know what protects diabetics? For sure?
Guns. LOL.
Lemme just say, I didn’t post this to say no one should take pill X, or stop you from using pill X. I’m on insulin. I know I can’t stop or refuse to take it. However, if you’re having some doubts and can prove to yourself what is and isn’t working out, let doc know pro or con and move on from there. Stand up for yourself. Life’s too short for bullshit.
CC- Thanks. I have Omega3 in the cabinet that I got bored and quit taking. lol. I’ll restart them and see what the doc says in December about the cholesterol numbers.
@MJA, the doctor I fired late last year for another reason wanted me to take a statin because my HDL cholesterol was 85. HDL is the so-called ‘good’ cholesterol. Everything else was well within the medical professions so-called normal values. My triglycerides usually average 45. It doesn’t matter what I eat and I love red meat and butter. I e-mailed her asking why I should take a statin for HDL and she responded with a non-answer ‘ok you don’t want one now’. Three more e-mails through her patient portal went unanswered. I still have yet to figure out why she wanted me on a statin for no reason. I fired her in the fall because she laughed at me and told me my diseased sigmoid colon was merely old lady bad hygiene. I could have easily died because of her.
You cannot trust libtard doctors. They say they are against capitalism, but they do like making money off of big pharma and treating their patients like peasants.
“..Are the risks of statin side effects over-hyped?
Mr. Calman points out that Dr. Malhotra has made claims that 75% of statin users quit within the first year. I echo Calman’s concern as I am not aware of a quality study showing that the rate is this high.
On the other hand, others quote a 1% or less side effect incidence in major statin trials.
What they fail to mention is that many of those trials have a “run in” period where everyone is given a statin and those who have side effects are excluded from participating in the trial.
Truly measuring statin side effects requires “real world” studies, not pharma-sponsored trials designed to minimize the reporting of side effects…”
https://www.dietdoctor.com/the-bitter-statin-debate .
“My LDL Cholesterol is High, But I’m Not Worried. Here’s Why.
..There is not a single study on non-drugged individuals showing that the combination of high LDL, low triglycerides, and high HDL ever leads to more heart disease. Not a single one!..”
https://blog.priceplow.com/diet-research/ldl-cholesterol .
Eugenia- Infuriating!!!
Back in the early 2000s I fired 7 doctors within 2 years. Long story, but #7 specialist realized I needed a more special specialist and that’s what kept me on the right side of the ground. lol.