In this post, I would like to discuss about statins and heart disease. I would like to also discuss about three key questions, which usually would give medical professionals hard time answering those questions. Below are the three questions which I love to pose to medical professionals such as doctors.
Question 1
Why don't veins develop atherosclerosis?
You may think that veins and arteries are very different. However, in general structure, arteries and veins both have a thin layer lining, one cell thick, known as the endothelium. Behind this, lies a thicker layer made up of muscle and connective tissue, known as the media. Wrapped around this, and holding the blood vessel together, is the externa.
In basic structure, therefore, arteries and veins are identical. Indeed, they start life exactly the same way in the embryo. The only difference is that arteries are thicker then veins because they have to deal with a higher blood pressure.
Given the fact the veins and arteries have exactly the same structure, and are exposed to exactly the level of LDL, oxidized or otherwise, you would think, would you not, that if LDL causes plaques to develop in an artery, it would also cause atherosclerotic plaques to develop in a vein? If it is a case of LDL somehow passing through the endothelium into the artery wall, and this is a function of the level of LDL in the blood.
Yet, atherosclerosis never develops in veins. Ponder that thought for a moment, and see if you can come up with an answer that involves LDL as a cause. But, if you take a vein from the leg and transplant it to the heart, the vein rapidly develops severe atherosclerosis. In this case, veins can develop atherosclerosis, if you make them do the job of an artery. Clear?
In conclusion, something about the position of arteries within the body or the job they do causes atherosclerosis to develop. That something cannot be LDL, or oxidized LDL, because this factor remains constant throughout the circulatory system.
Question 2
Why does atherosclerosis develop in discrete plaques?
Well, another major problem with the LDL hypothesis is the fact that, even in severely diseased individuals, most arterial walls are completely unaffected. If the level of LDL, oxidized or otherwise, is the main cause, how come some bits or artery don't get touched?
This, I suppose, is actually a similiar problem to the vein/artery conundrum. Why don't veins get atherosclerosis, and why are some areas of arteries vulnerable, while others are not? If LDL is leaking through the endothelium, or being transported through endothelium, and then entering the arterial wall behind, this should happen everywhere, in all arteries.
But what you would probably then go ponder is that plaques start at the areas of endothelial damage. But LDL does not damage the endothelium, no matter what the levels.
Question 3
If a high LDL causes atherosclerosis, how can people with low LDL levels get the same disease?
This might apply to the same question "How can high levels of cholesterol cause heart disease if people with low cholesterol get exactly the same disease?" The ad-hoc hypothesis that 'everyone in the West has a high cholesterol level' is well known to many people including medical professionals. In comparison, the 'primitive' man, everyone in the West has a cholesterol level that is far too high. Thus, everyone in the West who dies of heart disease automatically must have a high cholesterol level. Is that right?
How can this argument actually be supported? We have no idea what the 'healthy' cholesterol levels of our free range ancestors might have been? Surely we must be guessing right? Well, not so. According to an American cardiologist named JH O'Keefe, we should look at the surviving communities of hunter gatherers left in the world, animals in the wild, and infants as yet 'uncontaminated' by the western lifestyle. By analyzing these groups, we should be able to see what a natural, healthy, 'primitive' LDL level should be. In order words, the level we should strive to attain.
Moving on to the free living primates and other wild animals which were chosen by this cardiologist are as below.
Baboon
Horse
Boar
Night Monkey
African Elephant
Black rhinoceros
If any of you interested to read his research, feel free to Google him up and read his article. I'm just too lazy to explain in details about his research. Probably feeling too sleepy and partial brain fog after too much of stress at work. Damn.
What I want to stress here, is that the lower your cholesterol level as you grow older, the higher the risk of developing diseases such as cancer and other life threatening diseases. Besides, high LDL do not cause atherosclerosis or heart disease. Period.
Now, let's talk about statins and heart disease. Let's start off with UK. Despite the complete and utter lack of confidence of any mortality benefit, GPs in the UK are actively encouraged to check cholesterol levels in women, and further encouraged to get the cholesterol level below 5.0mmol/l. If they achieve this in a high enough percentage of their practice population, they are then paid large sums of money.
For god's sake, how can you justify putting millions upon millions of women on powerful and potentially very damaging drugs, when they will not save a single life? The question requires an answer. Perhaps you think that statins are harmless, so it doesn't really matter all that much? Well, if you are a fetus, statins are not harmless at all.
Making things even more likely to go wrong, statins have been presented as a universal panacea, with no side effects worth mentioning. Taking a statin, is now viewed among doctors, as to taking a multivitamin or low does aspirin! Shockingly unbelievable!
In primary prevention, statins do not only have ZERO effect on overall mortality, they also have zero effect on heart disease. So, you get absolutely no benefits at all. Quite hard to believe? Why not go on statins for years and see what happens? I've personally known quite a few people directly and indirectly to have been victims of statin drugs. I've tried hard to convince and explain the cholesterol hypothesis and the devastating effects of this drug to the people I know (who is on statins treatment), but most of them have fixed mindset and prefer to believe their doctors' advise. I thought doctors are supposed to save lives? What is happening?
Now, let's discuss a bit about the side effects of statin drugs. The primary way that statins kill people is through a side effect known as rhabdomyolysis, which is breakdown of skeletal muscle. I do not want to explain too technical and I'll try to be as layman and brief as possible. Basically, your muscles dissolve away, the waste products from this process destroy the kidneys and you can die of kidney failure. And yes, I'm not joking.
The major problem with statins though, is not that they kill a few hundred people here and there, it is that they create a huge burden of side effects, most of which go unnoticed or dismissed. You feel tired? Well, you are getting older after all. Muscle pains? We all get them. Even when you suffer from a complete belter of a side effect, most doctors refuse to believe this could possibly have anything to do with statin you are taking.
To whoever colleagues or friends reading this right now, I'm sure you have heard me telling you about a true event of an astronaut with NASA and his cholesterol story. His name is Duane Graveline. He is a doctor in the USA as well. Some years ago, he was found to have a raised cholesterol level and was put on a statin. He had no problem with this, as he fully believed in the cholesterol hypothesis and the benefits of statins.
However, he then suffered a highly disturbing episode of memory loss, so he stopped taking the statin. He had no further problem for the next year, so his doctor persuaded him to start a statin again, and he did so. Shortly after this, he suffered a much worst epidose of memory loss, during which he regressed into his teenage years, unable to recall training as a doctor at all. After regaining his memory, he was very shaken by the whole episode and binned the statins for good.
The doctors treating him refused to accept the possibility that statins could be the cause, and neither would anyone else. He then published a letter on a website asking if anyone else taking statins had suffered the same thing. He immediately received hundreds of replies from distraught patients and relatives. They describes a full array of cognitive side effects from amnesia to severe memory loss to confusion and disorientation, all associated with statins, mostly Lipitor.
When his doctor doubled up his statin dosage, he couldn't remember his brother's phone number, his recent trips, the meeting he should attend, the restaurant he ate in, and the list goes on. He is 39 years old at that time, and had been on Lipitor for 4 years.
Folks, I will continue another post about cholesterol hopefully tomorrow. I'm out now, finished my workout session, feeling tired, gotta get some good sleep. Stay tuned.
How can this argument actually be supported? We have no idea what the 'healthy' cholesterol levels of our free range ancestors might have been? Surely we must be guessing right? Well, not so. According to an American cardiologist named JH O'Keefe, we should look at the surviving communities of hunter gatherers left in the world, animals in the wild, and infants as yet 'uncontaminated' by the western lifestyle. By analyzing these groups, we should be able to see what a natural, healthy, 'primitive' LDL level should be. In order words, the level we should strive to attain.
Moving on to the free living primates and other wild animals which were chosen by this cardiologist are as below.
Baboon
Horse
Boar
Night Monkey
African Elephant
Black rhinoceros
If any of you interested to read his research, feel free to Google him up and read his article. I'm just too lazy to explain in details about his research. Probably feeling too sleepy and partial brain fog after too much of stress at work. Damn.
What I want to stress here, is that the lower your cholesterol level as you grow older, the higher the risk of developing diseases such as cancer and other life threatening diseases. Besides, high LDL do not cause atherosclerosis or heart disease. Period.
Now, let's talk about statins and heart disease. Let's start off with UK. Despite the complete and utter lack of confidence of any mortality benefit, GPs in the UK are actively encouraged to check cholesterol levels in women, and further encouraged to get the cholesterol level below 5.0mmol/l. If they achieve this in a high enough percentage of their practice population, they are then paid large sums of money.
For god's sake, how can you justify putting millions upon millions of women on powerful and potentially very damaging drugs, when they will not save a single life? The question requires an answer. Perhaps you think that statins are harmless, so it doesn't really matter all that much? Well, if you are a fetus, statins are not harmless at all.
Making things even more likely to go wrong, statins have been presented as a universal panacea, with no side effects worth mentioning. Taking a statin, is now viewed among doctors, as to taking a multivitamin or low does aspirin! Shockingly unbelievable!
In primary prevention, statins do not only have ZERO effect on overall mortality, they also have zero effect on heart disease. So, you get absolutely no benefits at all. Quite hard to believe? Why not go on statins for years and see what happens? I've personally known quite a few people directly and indirectly to have been victims of statin drugs. I've tried hard to convince and explain the cholesterol hypothesis and the devastating effects of this drug to the people I know (who is on statins treatment), but most of them have fixed mindset and prefer to believe their doctors' advise. I thought doctors are supposed to save lives? What is happening?
Now, let's discuss a bit about the side effects of statin drugs. The primary way that statins kill people is through a side effect known as rhabdomyolysis, which is breakdown of skeletal muscle. I do not want to explain too technical and I'll try to be as layman and brief as possible. Basically, your muscles dissolve away, the waste products from this process destroy the kidneys and you can die of kidney failure. And yes, I'm not joking.
The major problem with statins though, is not that they kill a few hundred people here and there, it is that they create a huge burden of side effects, most of which go unnoticed or dismissed. You feel tired? Well, you are getting older after all. Muscle pains? We all get them. Even when you suffer from a complete belter of a side effect, most doctors refuse to believe this could possibly have anything to do with statin you are taking.
To whoever colleagues or friends reading this right now, I'm sure you have heard me telling you about a true event of an astronaut with NASA and his cholesterol story. His name is Duane Graveline. He is a doctor in the USA as well. Some years ago, he was found to have a raised cholesterol level and was put on a statin. He had no problem with this, as he fully believed in the cholesterol hypothesis and the benefits of statins.
However, he then suffered a highly disturbing episode of memory loss, so he stopped taking the statin. He had no further problem for the next year, so his doctor persuaded him to start a statin again, and he did so. Shortly after this, he suffered a much worst epidose of memory loss, during which he regressed into his teenage years, unable to recall training as a doctor at all. After regaining his memory, he was very shaken by the whole episode and binned the statins for good.
The doctors treating him refused to accept the possibility that statins could be the cause, and neither would anyone else. He then published a letter on a website asking if anyone else taking statins had suffered the same thing. He immediately received hundreds of replies from distraught patients and relatives. They describes a full array of cognitive side effects from amnesia to severe memory loss to confusion and disorientation, all associated with statins, mostly Lipitor.
When his doctor doubled up his statin dosage, he couldn't remember his brother's phone number, his recent trips, the meeting he should attend, the restaurant he ate in, and the list goes on. He is 39 years old at that time, and had been on Lipitor for 4 years.
Folks, I will continue another post about cholesterol hopefully tomorrow. I'm out now, finished my workout session, feeling tired, gotta get some good sleep. Stay tuned.
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