What's the deal with Cholesterol?

There are sacred cows that exist in the wide world of health care, and one that is rightfully being questioned by both researchers and logical thinkers is the "fight against" cholesterol. This battle is an extension of the flawed "Lipid Hypothesis" of the 1960s which continues to have most of North America sold on low fat dieting as a means to losing fat and being healthy. The only problem? It hasn't worked. If low fat was the fix, why are 57 million prescriptions filled in the US each year for cholesterol-lowering medication to the tune of $26 billion in revenue?

The problem lies in the basic premise ... that cholesterol is bad for us.

Did you get your cholesterol today?

Cholesterol is a nutrient! It's a steroid hormone, like testosterone, estrogen and cortisol, and it is found in every cell membrane of all living organisms. It is the parent molecule to one of the most important hormones in the body, vitamin D. It's vital in immune system function and is required for tissue repair and healing. Does that sound like something we need to be afraid of? Why would our body require a nutrient that was so devastating to its own survival?

The answer, of course, is it wouldn't. In fact, there is no such thing as good and bad cholesterol. The HDL and LDL molecules that are marketed as good and bad are not even cholesterol. They are molecules that carry cholesterol through the bloodstream, with LDL carrying cholesterol to the tissues (including the arteries) that are in need of repair and HDL carrying them back to the liver to be recycled.

Here's the claim: High cholesterol is the cause of heart disease, and lowering cholesterol with statin drugs save lives. What does the data say? In a 2011 study of 52,000 people over 10 years, those women with the highest cholesterol levels lived the longest. Yes, the highest levels. In the Lipitor trials, 99 people needed to take the drug for 3 years for every one person to have a benefit. Add in the well-documented side effects of statins like muscle pain, depression, and sexual dysfunction, to name only a few, and we need to seriously reconsider conventional wisdom.

Bottom Line

Statin drugs reduce cholesterol, but they do not reduce your chance of dying. What do you think? 

Comments

[Michelle Vermeeren]

I agree. I work in Long term care, and our medical director is changing his practice of treating high cholesterol in our seniors. He is taking people off cholesterol medications that they have taken for years! The result - they are just fine! Stop taking the drugs.
M