More reasons not to worry about your cholesterol

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I don’t care what my cholesterol levels are and refuse to have it checked. Your liver manufactures cholesterol for a reason: for one thing, it’s a major building material of our nervous systems. I say leave it alone. Pharmaceutical companies, and many (most?) doctors continue to press for cholesterol-lowering drugs in the questionable belief that they protect you from cardiovascular disease.

Recently a new cholesterol-lowering drug (evacetrapib) was rigorously tested on 12,000 patients (actually, half of those patients received a placebo). The hope was that this new drug could replace statins, which have nasty side effects--such as muscle cramping, muscle weakness, and mental disturbance. The new drug lowered the “bad” LDL levels by 37 percent and doubled the level of the “good” HDL cholesterol. The result: 434 people taking the drug died from cardiovascular disease, such as a heart attack or stroke, compared with 444 who were taking a placebo. In other words, dramatically changing cholesterol levels had no effect on heart disease. As one of the investigators said: “How can a drug that lowers something that is associated with benefit not show any benefit?” To me it shows that all this cholesterol-lowering business has no benefit.

As to statins, Professor Harumi Okuyama of Nagoya City University in Japan, reports that industry-sponsored studies that purportedly show the benefits of statins are “unreliable.” “We have collected a wealth of information on cholesterol and statins from many published papers and find overwhelming evidence that these drugs accelerate hardening of the arteries and can cause, or worsen, heart failure. I cannot find any evidence to support people taking statins and patients who are on them should stop.” The researchers found that patients taking the drugs were more likely to have calcium deposits in their arteries, a phenomenon directly linked to heart attacks. The reason for this is that statins block a molecule needed for the body to produce a vital K vitamin, which prevents calcification of the arteries.

I think it’s a particular shame that otherwise healthy people are turned into sick people who need drugs simply because their cholesterol numbers don’t measure up to some questionable standard. Leave me out of it.

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