Who Should Take Cholesterol-lowering Statins?
Everyone or No One?
Should cholesterol-lowering statins be added to our drinking
water in order to prevent atherosclerosis, like fluoride is
added to prevent tooth decay? Some medical doctors and
scientists have recommended this public health measure because
heart disease and strokes threaten the lives of more than half
of all people following the Western diet. Apparently, even
healthy people are now being told to take statins, with
recommendations that over the age of 50, regardless of their
health history, people should take these medications daily.
Statins Lower Cholesterol but Do Little for Better Health
Statins effectively lower blood cholesterol by inhibiting an
enzyme (HMG-CoA reductase) involved in the production of
cholesterol in the liver. The cholesterol numbers, revealed by
simple blood tests, are dramatically reduced with this commonly
prescribed treatment. Unfortunately, the reduction in blood
cholesterol translates into only very small improvements in the
health of the arteries, as seen by tiny (but statistically
significant) reductions in heart disease. These weak benefits
can be appreciated in very sick people who are at high risk for
future health problems. This strategy is called secondary
prevention. They have already had a serious problem.
However, the benefits from statins are very difficult to
demonstrate in healthy people because their risk of future
troubles is very low, and the real-life benefits from
statins are very small. This strategy is called primary
prevention. Nothing serious has happened, yet. Intervention is
being recommended in hopes of preventing a serious event in the
future.
There is an ongoing controversy as to whether or not statins
should be more widely prescribed. The doctors and scientists
working for pharmaceutical companies think they should be. But,
consider the influence of money on their findings and opinions.
Annually, $37 billion is spent on cholesterol-lowering
medications worldwide.
My Recommendations for Statins Are Changing*
Currently, the data is based on the study of people who eat SAD diet.
(Standard American Diet) I believe the benefits will be
found to be far less in people who consume a starch-based
Nimal diet.
A recent analysis, published in the medical journal, the Lancet,
by John Abramson, MD, summarizes the effects of statin
therapy: “Our analysis suggests that lipid-lowering statins
should not be prescribed for true primary prevention in women of
any age or for men older than 69 years. High-risk men aged 30–69
years should be advised that about 50 patients need to be
treated for 5 years to prevent one event. In our experience,
many men presented with this evidence do not choose to take a
statin, especially when informed of the potential benefits of
lifestyle modification on cardiovascular risk and overall
health.”
Cholesterol-lowering statin therapy is based on the observation
that high cholesterol levels in a person’s blood are associated
with more heart attacks and stroke. The organic substance
cholesterol is found in large amounts in all animal foods. When
people eat meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products their
blood cholesterol levels rise. The rationale is that lowering
these levels with medication will fix the problem. As discussed
above, the real-life benefits have been minimal. Not
surprisingly, this failure has led researchers to look into
other mechanisms to explain how eating animal products and other
unhealthy foods cause artery damage.
In April of 2013, an article in Nature Medicine and one in the
New England Journal of Medicine found that a diet of meat, dairy
products, and eggs caused damage to the arteries by increasing
the production of trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO). Carnatine and
choline, found in these animal foods in high concentrations, are
metabolized by gut microbes (bacteria) into trimethylamine (TMA),
which in turn is absorbed into the bloodstream and then
metabolized by the liver into TMAO. This organic compound has
been shown to cause artery damage in animal experiments and is
strongly associated with heart disease in people.
Meat, dairy products, eggs, and other animal foods favor the
growth of bacteria that readily convert carnatine and choline to
TMA. Vegans and vegetarians grow few of these kinds of bacteria
and as a result produce very little artery-damaging TMAO. This
research may lead to medical treatments, including the use of
probiotics (bacteria supplied in pills and fermented foods),
medications to limit the synthesis of trimethylamine from
carnatine and choline, and/or antibiotics to suppress specific
TMA-producing bacteria in the intestine. In all three
pharmacologic approaches the medications would need to be taken
for a lifetime. Great profits will be generated as a result,
just like with statins.
Who Should Take Statins? A Starch-based Diet Is the Non-profit
Solution
Starches, vegetables, and fruits are essentially
cholesterol-free and discourage the growth of intestinal
bacteria that lead to the synthesis of artery-damaging TMAO; and
these foods contain very little carnatine and choline (the
precursors of TMAO). Unarguably,—whether blaming cholesterol,
carnatine, choline, or bad-bowel-bacteria—diseases of
atherosclerosis (heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, etc.)
are due to consuming meat, dairy products, and eggs. Therefore I
recommend the
Nimal Diet to prevent and treat heart and other artery
diseases. In other words, fix the problem.
Lack of profit is the primary reason for lack of acceptance of
this simple, safe approach. Consider that the most popular brand
name statin, Crestor, purchased at a discount pharmacy like
Costco or CVS, costs about $6 a day. Comparatively, a
starch-based diet costs $3 a day for all of the food (2500
calories). The rivers of profits from a drug-over-diet approach
entend to the food and medical industries. (Generic statins are
much less expensive.)
Our research shows that the cholesterol-lowering benefits of the
Nimal Diet are comparable to statins. In seven days people
starting with total cholesterol of 200 mg/dL or more experience
a reduction of 34.2 mg/dL on average. If the starting number is
240 mg/dL or more, the average reduction is 42.1 mg/dL. (If LDL
is initially 100 mg/dL or greater, the average reduction is 21.1
mg/dL; if 160 mg/dL or greater, the average reduction is 31.5
mg/dL.)
For most patients with serious existing disease, such as those with a
history of heart surgery, heart disease, TIAs, or stroke, who
absolutely resuse to eat healthy it is ok to I recommend
sufficient cholesterol-lowering statin medications to lower
their blood cholesterol to 150 mg/dL or less because people who
take poison may need another poison to curb the effects of that
poison. (Namely Animal Foods)
Nimal diet for people with known cardiac disease based on Dr Esselstyn's Study
95% deaths can be prevented.
Absolutely no Side Effects.
95% of Cancers can be prevented as well.