Dr. Weeks’ Comment: My readers won’t be surprised to learn there’s a second side to the coin of cholesterol. We’ve been taught that high cholesterol is dangerous and that statin medications are essential. If you review the following, you might scratch your head and wonder about what your best option is.
TOPIC: CHOLESTEROL
High cholesterol is NOT the villain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX1vBA9bLNk
LDL-C does not cause cardiovascular disease: a comprehensive review of the current literature
Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol. 2018 Oct;11(10):959-970.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30198808/
doi: 10.1080/17512433.2018.1519391. Epub 2018 Oct 11.
For half a century, a high level of total cholesterol (TC) or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) has been considered to be the major cause of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD), and statin treatment has been widely promoted for cardiovascular prevention. However, there is an increasing understanding that the mechanisms are more complicated and that statin treatment, in particular when used as primary prevention, is of doubtful benefit. Areas covered: The authors of three large reviews recently published by statin advocates have attempted to validate the current dogma. This article delineates the serious errors in these three reviews as well as other obvious falsifications of the cholesterol hypothesis. Expert commentary: Our search for falsifications of the cholesterol hypothesis confirms that it is unable to satisfy any of the Bradford Hill criteria for causality and that the conclusions of the authors of the three reviews are based on misleading statistics, exclusion of unsuccessful trials and by ignoring numerous contradictory observations.
International Association of Cholesterol Skeptics.
For years, Dr. Weeks has lectured that chronic excessive inflammation is the killer – not cholesterol. Read the powerful words below of a cardiac surgeon with 25 years of practice who honorably (albeit belatedly) comes clean on the debacle which is modern cardiology and its related abuse of statin drugs. Cholesterol is not the problem… inflammation is!
“… inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease…. Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended.
It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped…”
https://weeksmd.com/2014/06/inflammation-cholesterol-killer-re-heart-attacks/
Total cholesterol and risk of mortality in the oldest patients.
Weverling-Rijnsburger AW et al
The impact of total serum cholesterol as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease decreases with age, which casts doubt on the necessity for cholesterol-lowering therapy in the elderly. We assessed the influence of total cholesterol concentrations on specific and all-cause mortality in people aged 85 years and over. In people older than 85 years, high total cholesterol concentrations are associated with longevity owing to lower mortality from cancer and infection. The effects of cholesterol-lowering therapy have yet to be assessed.
https://www.thelancet.com/retrieve/pii/S0140673697044309
We have reconfirmation of this revolutionary insight that high cholesterol is protective… “elderly people with the highest cholesterol levels have the highest survival rates irrespective of where they live in the world.” https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/381654
Excellent Article
TOPIC: STATIN DRUGS
- Statins harm the heart “Statins stimulate atherosclerosis and heart failure: pharmacological mechanisms”. https://cardiacos.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2015-Statins-stimulate-atherosclerosis-and-heart-failure-pharmacological-mechanisms.pdf
- Statins damage mitochondria https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096178/#:~:text=Hydroxyl%2Dmethylglutaryl%20coenzyme%20A%20reductase,Q10%20levels%20in%20the%20serum
- Statins destroy energy (Co Q 10 production)
https://weeksmd.com/2009/08/the-patent-for-statin-drugs-included-co-q-10/
Original patents for statins INCLUDED Co Q 10
https://weeksmd.com/2012/10/patent-for-statin-drug-included-co-q-10/
4) Statins are dangerous
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18BSRRVRKN/
and
My Statin Story – by Dr. Duane Graveline, M.D.
“They started me on the same statin, Lipitor, at half the previous dose saying that my first 6-hour episode of TGA was only a coincidence. Two months later I again experienced TGA. For twelve hours I was a thirteen-year-old highschool student who knew my subjects, teachers and every kid in my class (according to my worried wife) but with no memory of my entire adult life. I laughed when they told me I was married with children and a doctor. I could not have doctored a mouse and certainly had no children. I was thirteen! Fifty-six years of rich and fulfilled adult life had vanished from my mind as if it had never occurred.”
5) Statins work by a weak anti-inflammatory and there are far safer and more beneficial anti-inflammatory agents than statins.
6) General overview of problems w/ statins https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/the-great-cholesterol-scam-and-the?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
7) Niacin is a better option than statins
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CymyBgi5u/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12873710/
Although the use of niacin in the treatment of dyslipidemia has been reported as early as 1955, only recent studies have yielded an understanding about the cellular and molecular mechanism of action of niacin on lipid and lipoprotein metabolism. In brief, the beneficial effect of niacin to reduce triglycerides and apolipoprotein-B containing lipoproteins (e.g., VLDL and LDL) are mainly through: a) decreasing fatty acid mobilization from adipose tissue triglyceride stores, and b) inhibiting hepatocyte diacylglycerol acyltransferase and triglyceride synthesis leading to increased intracellular apo B degradation and subsequent decreased secretion of VLDL and LDL particles.
and
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11701466/
Evidence indicates that the high density lipoprotein (HDL) subfraction containing apolipoprotein A-I without apolipoprotein AII (LP-AI) is more antiatherogenic than HDL particles containing apolipoprotein A-I and apolipoprotein A-II (LP-AI+AII). …Niacin-ER had a greater effect in raising HDL-C and apolipoprotein A-I levels than did gemfibrozil.
https://weeksmd.com/2009/08/the-patent-for-statin-drugs-included-co-q-10/
and
Niacin vs Statin
Niacin Cholesterol and Longevity
https://weeksmd.com/2008/06/niacin-coronary-disease-and-longevity/
Niacin reduces CVD
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2012.10.030
Conclusions:
The consensus perspective derived from available clinical data supports that niacin reduces CVD events and, further, that this may occur through a mechanism not reflected by changes in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration.
The Effects of Statin and Niacin on Plaque Stability,
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3242018/
The combination of niacin plus simvastatin decreases coronary plaque volume and attenuates the inflammatory response in patients with coronary artery stenosis.
Adding Niacin to statins is superior to statins alone.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3242018/
BLOOD TESTS your Doctor has neglected to do for you
oxidized LDL cholesterol
homocysteine
RBC magnesium
hs-CRP
D-dimer
fibrinogen activity