Cholesterol Controversy

According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 71 million American adults (33.5%)  have high LDL, or "bad" cholesterol.  If you are one of those 71 million Americans, should you be concerned that your "high" cholesterol level puts you at increased risk for heart disease?

Our goal is for you to be able to make knowledgeable and informed decisions when it comes to your health.  Sorting through the abundance of research and determining which studies may be valid is a daunting task.  Not every "new finding" will be validated by subsequent research, and abandoning sound or conventional treatment can result in serious consequences.  However, there is a growing amount of research and medical opinion to support questioning the use of statin drugs to treat high cholesterol.  Consider the following points.

The drug industry is big business and is powerful.  As of 2009, the cholesterol-lowering industry was generating approximately $29 billion per year.  Pharmaceutical companies have also been influential in altering the definition of high cholesterol in order to increase the number of people who are eligible for cholesterol medications.  According to K.L. Carlson, MBA, author of "The Great Cholesterol Scam", "Cholesterol guidelines have been created to increase pharmaceutical profits, not to improve peoples’ health. I know from my experience as a pharmaceutical sales representative for a statin drug. We were trained to emphasize to physicians the new lower LDL guidelines that were ostensibly created by health experts. The truth is the majority of the experts who created the lower guidelines have multiple financial ties to pharmaceutical companies. One expert was found to have ties to ten drug firms."

A new national study has shown that nearly 75 percent of patients hospitalized for a heart attack had cholesterol levels that would indicate they were not at high risk for a cardiovascular event, based on current national cholesterol guidelines.  The author of the article who cited this study went on to suggest that the guidelines for determining what defines high cholesterol levels should be lowered even more.  But what if  "high cholesterol" is not the major risk factor for heart disease that we have been led to believe?  In fact, a recent study in Norway says women with high cholesterol live longer and suffer from fewer heart attacks and strokes than those with lower cholesterol.  A French study reported in the medical journal Lancet stated that the death rate for elderly women with the lowest cholesterol levels was 5 times greater than that of other subjects in the study.  Numerous other studies have also shown that both men and women with the lowest cholesterol levels died earlier of all causes, including cardiovascular events.

There is a growing body of evidence that points toward factors other than high cholesterol as being the primary causes of heart disease.  According to the Harvard Medical School, "What you eat can fuel or cool, inflammation, a key driver of heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions."  In their Family Health Guide they state, "Chronic low-grade inflammation is intimately involved in all stages of atherosclerosis, the process that leads to cholesterol-clogged arteries. This means that inflammation sets the stage for heart attacks, most strokes, peripheral artery disease, and even vascular dementia, a common cause of memory loss."  A primary contributor to inflammation is a diet high in refined foods such as white bread, white rice, and sugars. 

And now for our usual disclaimer... if you are under a physician's care for high cholesterol, we are not suggesting you change your prescribed treatment without consulting your doctor.  We do want you to know, however, that there are some very valid questions being raised about whether or not high cholesterol levels are indeed a risk factor for heart disease.  In the words of nutrition and exercise coach, Justin Smith, "Better results will be achieved when we develop a more well-rounded focus on other risks for heart  disease, which include stress, toxins, a sedentary lifestyle and a poor diet. As an added bonus, these factors aren't treated with dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, but with simple, healthful lifestyle changes."