It appears most mainstream scientists have finally begun to catch on to what I’ve been saying for years: Cholesterol isn’t the problem big pharma makes it out to be. And cholesterol-lowering drugs just don’t work as promoted. Of course, it only took a few decades for them to see what’s been hiding in plain sight. Nevertheless, I’m pleased.
First, as I mentioned on Tuesday, two scientists at my local medical school, the University of South Florida, exposed the statistical deceptions used by big pharma and their cardiology co-dependents to grossly inflate any trivial benefits of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs that may actually exist. They also used these statistical manipulations to hide the drugs’ toxic side effects.
Second, a team of scientists explained exactly how statins act as metabolic poisons.
Third, the government’s Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will finally reverse four decades of bad dietary advice about avoiding cholesterol and saturated fats. In fact, the government no longer considers cholesterol–as found in healthy foods like egg yolks–a “nutrient of concern.”
That’s all great news. But none of it should come as a surprise to you, as a regular reader of my Daily Dispatch. You already know cholesterol in the diet isn’t a concern. And you know these drugs can do damage to virtually every organ in the body. They can also cause cancer, cataracts, dementia, diabetes, and muscular-skeletal diseases. They even contribute to heart disease and heart failure itself.
On a metabolic level, these drugs interfere with mitochondria (the energy-producing fires of the cells), CoQ10 (which stokes those fires), and ATP (the energy storage battery and delivery system for all metabolic processes). They also interfere with selenium compounds that act as cellular antioxidants. (For more background on the importance of selenium, you can refer to the February 2015 issue of my Insiders’ Cures newsletter. If you’re not yet a subscriber, now is the perfect time to get started.)
No wonder cardiologists and all the other medical specialists do so well. They keep feverishly busy treating statin drugs’ many side effects. (Fortunately, some medical specialists, such as gerontologists and family practitioners, have started to take their patients off statins for “lack of benefit” in their patients.)
Of course, the cholesterol/fat myth won’t go away easily. Government scientists used the myth to terrify entire generations. As a result, cardiologists and their patients obsessed about cholesterol levels as some kind of measure of health and fitness in America.
But, as I mentioned earlier this week, I learned about the cholesterol myth in 1976 from my studies in veterinary medicine. You see, in primates (humans’ closest relatives), cholesterol in the diet has zero impact on cholesterol in the blood. Furthermore, blood cholesterol has zero impact on cardiovascular outcomes.
In the early 1980s, Harvard researchers figured out dietary cholesterol is a myth for human populations. They presented their findings to National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists. I know because I was there. Then, in the early 1990s, the U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop personally told me that avoiding cholesterol and eggs is a myth.
Truthfully, the push to lower cholesterol was never about health. It was about raising profits. The cholesterol cartel created the myth, and then proceeded to make trillions of dollars from it. Some people actually pay $600 per month for statin drugs. And some probably use their grocery money to do it.
I find it extremely curious that Joe Q. Public finally gets to hear the truth about cholesterol and statin drugs just as big pharma faces the loss of its patent protection (and guaranteed profits) on these blockbuster drugs.
As you may know, the body makes its own cholesterol. It’s needed for healthy cell walls, brain tissue, and hormones. Furthermore, your body breaks down any cholesterol you happen to consume with food during digestion. That’s a big reason the body makes its own in the first place!
Of course, disorders of cholesterol metabolism can signal other problems. But when you try to improve health by blocking cholesterol, it’s like covering up the heat indicator light on your car to prevent it from overheating.
For example, high cholesterol and low ratios of “good” to “bad” cholesterol may indicate an insulin problem. In fact, high levels of insulin stimulate the production of more cholesterol.
However, keep in mind, studies done by the World Health Organization link higher cholesterol with better measures of general health and nutrition in populations worldwide. Plus, evidence links lower cholesterol with brain hemorrhage, biliary-liver disease, and cancer. Some of these disease risks in a population start to appear at cholesterol levels below 180 mg/dl or even 200 mg/dl.
Many government health experts talk about cholesterol and saturated fat in the same breath. They say both are unhealthy. But as with cholesterol, dietary fat does not make the body fat. Furthermore, dietary fat consumption does not raise cholesterol or triglyceride levels.
For many years, medical anthropologists studied Eskimos. They survive on animal fats, including the “blubber” of marine mammals. Living on these traditional high-fat diets, they have almost no heart disease, diabetes or obesity. However, Eskimo dietary fat contains high levels of omega-3, and not omega-6, fatty acids. The Mediterranean diet contains these same healthy omega-3 fats with very few omega-6s. It took many decades before dietary experts acknowledged these differences.
As you know, carbs, sugars and processed artificial foods stimulate the accumulation of body fat. And, of course, the obsession with supposed dangers of cholesterol and saturated fats led people to consume foods high in sugar and carbs instead. Moreover, food manufacturers came out with expensive, “low-fat” products that literally fed this unhealthy myth and this unholy alliance against the American consumer.
The government science bureaucrats foisted one myth after another onto the American people. No wonder we’re still keeping doctors quite busy treating chronic diseases and doling out useless, counter-productive pills.
You can learn more about how to keep a healthy heart without resorting to statin drugs by reading my special report called The Insider’s Guide to a Heart-Healthy and Statin-Free Life.