Has your doctor used the “you have high cholesterol” line on you yet?
Did hearing these grave words make your hands shake and your face go pale?
Did you immediately call or text your spouse after you left the doctor’s office? Did you drive just a little too fast as you drove to the first pharmacy drive-thru to get your statin prescription filled?
It’s time to end the madness about high cholesterol, because you see, cholesterol isn’t going to kill you and contrary to conventional belief, it’s not going to make you drop dead of a heart attack if you don’t religiously take statin drugs for the rest of your life.
It’s time to start listening to those doctors who are telling us the truth: evaluating heart disease risk is far more complex than a snap evaluation of a single number like total cholesterol.
Furthermore, it’s time to carefully weigh the ample scientific evidence that cholesterol is actually beneficial, not detrimental, to our health! Consider the research of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, consistently ignored by the statin pushing crowd, who reported that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol.
Besides the fact that “total cholesterol” is a meaningless number in and of itself, taking statin drugs carries huge health risks such as muscle wasting, significant cognitive impairment and cancer. That’s right, the c-word. In every single study to date conducted on rodents, statins caused cancer. One human trial showed that breast cancer rates of women taking statins were 1500% higher than than of controls (source). In addition, a study showed that women who take statins for 10 or more years increase their risk of breast cancer by nearly 2.5 times (source).
Let’s examine a few other cholesterol myths so the next time you’re sitting in a doctor’s office and the person in the white coat is pushing statins on you, you are armed with evidence supporting your position to just say no.
Natural cholesterol has many benefits in the diet!
Cholesterol Myths #1: People with high cholesterol are more likely to have a heart attack.
It is indeed true that men who are young or middle aged have a slightly greater risk for heart attack if their total cholesterol level is over 300. However, for elderly women and men, high cholesterol is associated with a longer life. In addition, cholesterol levels just below 300 carry no greater risk than very low cholesterol levels. The suggestion by conventional medicine to take statins if cholesterol is over 180 or 200 is completely arbitrary and harmful over the long term.
Cholesterol Myths #2: Cholesterol and saturated fat in foods like butter, egg yolks and liver clog arteries.
This myth has no basis in fact as arterial plaques contain very little cholesterol or saturated fat. 75% of arterial plaque is made up of unsaturated fat, of which 50% is polyunsaturated. Only the remaining 25% is saturated. Moreover, the greater the concentration of polyunsaturated fat in the plaque, the more likely it is to rupture, a primary cause of heart attacks. Chris Kresser L. Ac sums it up well:
the notion that saturated fat “clogs arteries” and causes heart attacks is totally false. It is actually polyunsaturated fat — the so-called “heart-healthy fat — which has those effects.
Cholesterol Myths #3: Eating saturated fat and foods like butter cause cholesterol levels to rise and make people more susceptible to heart attacks.
If this is true, why then have heart attack rates risen as people have avoided saturated fats like butter, meat fats and egg yolks? There is no evidence that saturated fat and cholesterol rich foods contribute to heart disease and doctors that continue to claim this are just plain wrong with at least two major studies confirming this (source).
Cholesterol Myths #4: Cholesterol-lowering drugs save lives.
Statins do not result in any improvement in outcome in recent trials involving thousands of test subjects. Why risk the devastating side effects of statins like cancer and mental decline when they won’t help anyway? (source)
Cholesterol Myths #5: Countries that have a high consumption of animal fats and cholesterol have higher rates of heart disease.
The elephant in the room with this myth are countries like France where butter, cream, and pate are eaten with abandon with no corresponding increase in heart disease (source). According to Dr. John Briffa, top honors graduate of the University College London School of Medicine:
You’ll sometimes hear about the ‘French paradox’, which describes the phenomenon of low heart disease rates in France ‘despite’ a diet rich in saturated fat. Well, it seems that this ‘paradox’ is not limited to France, but is alive and well in several other countries too including the UK, Germany, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Iceland, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In other words, it’s not a paradox at all. It’s only a paradox if one believes saturated fat causes heart disease. The thing is, there’s really no good evidence that it does.
So relax! The next time you’re sitting in the doctor’s office reviewing the results of your latest blood test and the words “high cholesterol” and “statin drugs” are spoken in the same breath, just smile politely and say “no thanks”.
Feel confident in your decision to opt out of the statin madness.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources:
Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
Ignore the Awkward: How the Cholesterol Myths are Kept Alive by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
The Cholesterol Myths by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
The French Paradox is Not a Paradox
How to Increase Your Risk of Heart Disease
Heart Surgeon Speaks Out on What Really Causes Heart Disease
What? You have drive through pharmacies over there?
On every corner practically! Crazy and sad.
Just had my annual blood work done and cholesterol came down from 240 to 230. My doc and I have an on going joke….. She was pleased……….and I groaned stating that I was bummed because it had dropped. We had a good laugh. At least she is understanding of my opinions and decisions even though she still disagrees. BTW…. HDL and Triglycerides were excellent. All thanks to the good high fat diet I eat. 🙂
Ok, true story…a few years ago, I was waiting on a doctor to lecture some of our patients on how to understand your blood tests, when she laughed and said that she wished she had bought stock in the statins, cause now they are recommending everyone be on them, even if their cholestrol is normal! So telling….
Statins for life. A profitable residual income plan if there ever was one! Now they are putting kids on them too!
I have heard docs, in all seriousness, state that statins are “so good” that “everyone should be on them”! In fact, i heard one suggest we add it to the water in the same way fluoride is added. (Don’t get me started on that one!)
Of course, this was a few years ago before the problems with statins were so well known, tho i was aware. Any doctor that states “This is so good EVERYONE should take it” fill me with a great sense of distrust. Even the so-called healthy things. I had a natural-leaning MD say that about low-dose naltrexone a few years back. Even tho i know many people have had good results with this stuff, i did not (only managed 3 days before the side effects got to me). It meant that i really didn’t trust her judgement after that and soon began looking elsewhere.
Just did the blood test and this is what the doc wrote:
“Your total cholesterol is very high. Your cholesterol was 266 mg/dl, normal is less than 200. Your LDL was 148, normal is less than 130. Your LDL is elevated. Your triglyceride result was 107, normal is less than 150. Your HDL was 97, normal is greater than 45. HDL cholesterol is the “good” cholesterol that protects the body against vascular disease. Your HDL elvel is high (very good).”
That’s right. Have been eating wild salmon and calf liver drenched in grassfed butter quite often. My local butcher also sells fresh pork belly, the cut used to make bacon. If you ever tried homemade bacon, you will never go back to the commercial kind. Also available are suet, leaf lard, and beef bones jam packed with marrow.
.
Perhaps in Soon Future,
You can speak to the Role of Oxidized Cholesterol
as the Clogged Artery Culprit ?
Yes, good point. The oxidized cholesterol in processed foods is bad and should be avoided, not the whole cholesterol in eggs, meat, and other saturated fats. Not all cholesterol is created equal.
Thanks for this article, Sarah! We have been in this battle for years with my very healthy, very fit, 34 year old husband. Even his mother, who is adamantly opposed to statins, wants him to lower his total cholesterol (240) through natural methods. Sis nervous b/c she believes him to have hereditary high cholesterol. I would love more expert opinions on this matter. Do you know of any docs/naturopaths in the central FL area that specialize in this area? Thanks again for your daily sharing of your wealth of information!!!!
Hi Kim, our local WAPF Chapter yahoo board has a list of holistic practitioners with a wide variety of backgrounds if you want to check that out.
And when you get more expert opinions in this area, which one will you believe? I am sure the WAPF will direct you to doctors who believe their diet is best (and I would agree with them in general myself). Other naturopaths are going to say vegetarians have it right. If you look long enough you will find one to tell you what you want to hear, and Mom can find one to tell son what she wants him to hear. One thing is for sure though, and that is stress increases your risk of disease! I would thank Mom for caring and sharing, and then Mom should be done telling a 34yo what to worry about. (This is hard for us Moms; I too have grown children I care about deeply:-)
How does your husband feel about it all? Is he concerned? Does he feel comfortable with where he is in his health? Does he want more expert opinions? Has he asked you to research it for him? I personally would make a plan with him for how he wants to handle his health, ie fix meals in the way you agree on, and then I would let him live his life and support him in his choices! A happy man is worth having:-)
The cholesterol myth is really an example of the power of medical marketing and people wanting an easy fix. I guess its just easier to blame saturated fat then to admit that pharma is profiting off statins.
My pastor’s cholesterol levels have consistently been over 800 much of his life. (That’s not a typo.). So, by the way, have his 92yo mother’s. I’ve heard it described that cholesterol is simply the pig that got caught in the barn door, being forced to take the blame for marketing and our own stupidity of buying it.
If the medical profession told people the truth, where would the money go? Then again, very few people want to hear the truth, most of my extended family included. My husband is a medical professional and fights this battle every day. Great article.
“I’ve heard it described that cholesterol is simply the pig that got caught in the barn door”
I have never heard that phrase before, but I love it! What a vivid description. 🙂
“Statins do not result in any improvement in outcome in recent trials involving thousands of test subjects. Why risk the devastating side effects of statins like cancer and mental decline when they won’t help anyway?”
This is brilliant and shows exactly how so many people will blindly follow their docyor’s advice, which is to sell prescriptions after all isn’t it?
We need more blogs like this everywhere!
thank you
I work with a pretty good doc, a MD who is into natural and holistic treatment. I suppose she writes scripts for drugs sometimes, but most often she recommends supplements. (I’ve made it clear i NEVER want a Rx drug, she hasn’t ever offered.)
I had a blood panel run recently. I was quite pleased with the results because in the past (when i was eating lots of junk with HFCS) my triglycerides were very high (658 at one point). Triglycerides came back at 148 and i was thrilled. Total cholesterol was “high” based on current arbitrary numbers, i think about 270. She started to discuss this, and i told her that as long as the total number was under 300 i have no concern for it. She didn’t comment and left it alone.