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Side Effects of Statin Drugs
By
Dr. James Merchino, DC, MS, ND
I want to talk to you briefly about statin drugs. Statin drugs are used, as you know,
to lower cholesterol. I personally believe they’re being over-prescribed and I say
that because studies show that 90 percent of people can get their cholesterol into the
ideal range with diet and life style alone. But doctors don’t emphasis this point enough;
when a person’s cholesterol is rising, they’re very quick to write a prescription for a statin
drug where in many cases, they could be using diet and lifestyle as the first intervention.
So the question is, how do statin drugs actually work? Statin drugs block the production of
cholesterol in the liver so less of it gets into the bloodstream. That sounds like a good
thing, but why is cholesterol being turned on in the first place? When you eat saturated
fats, trans fats and deep fried foods that turns on cholesterol production.
And this is really where the problem is. Once those fats get absorbed and they go into the
liver, in order to get out of the liver to be transported through the blood stream to
the different tissues that will use that fat, the liver has to make cholesterol to sort
of help to transport the fat, if you will. Then as the fat is being transported through
the bloodstream, the cells are able to pick the fat up. Then either the fat cells will
store the fat or the muscle cells will burn the fat. After this process, what’s left
in the bloodstream is the cholesterol; the bad cholesterol known as the LDL cholesterol.
Your body can’t burn cholesterol; these are not calories that tissues can burn. People
say I can eat those fats because I burn them off. You might burn the fat off, but the cholesterol
remains behind. And if you make too much cholesterol because you’re eating too many of those
foods, that cholesterol can lodge in the walls of the arteries and narrow your arteries over
time, leading to atherosclerosis and an increased risk for heart attack, stroke and kidney damage,
and of course you know the rest of the story. It’s the leading cause of death because
people have too much cholesterol plaque in their arteries.
Statin drugs block the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver, trapping the fat there and leaving
it no way to escape because there is no cholesterol available to transport the fat away. As the
fat accumulates in the liver cells, it can damage the liver cells, and when the liver
cells are damaged, liver enzymes leak into the bloodstream.
When doctors place their patients on statin drugs they have to monitor their blood to
see if liver enzymes are leaking into the bloodstream. They know it’s a major risk,
and it sounds a bit dangerous because it is a bit dangerous.
Statin drugs have also been shown to damage muscle tissue and lead to an increase in muscle
pain. They can actually cause kidney damage and sometimes a life threatening kidney condition.
In fact, some statin drugs have been taken off of the market because of their significant
correlation to a very lethal type of kidney failure. I really do believe that diet and
lifestyle are under utilized in many situations when people have high cholesterol and I want
to bring this into the forefront. To be fair, some people absolutely need to
take statin drugs – typically those who have a strong genetic predisposition for high
cholesterol. But they are easy to identify and make up only about 5 to 10 percent of
the population who take statin drugs to lower their cholesterol. Another group that should
continue taking statin drugs is people at high risk for cardiovascular disease who have
already had a heart attack or a stroke. In these situations, I can appreciate the importance
of statin drugs in their management. But for the rest of us, diet and lifestyle should
be what we primarily rely on. It’s the safest way to go and they have been shown to be very,
very effective. This is where I come in. I would strongly
recommend you downloading my Cholesterol Lowering Lifestyle program, immediately, and act on
the strategies that I put in there because they are evidence based.
At http://www.MeschinoHealth.com you’ll see my published review papers, videos, live
footage from different seminars that I’ve taught and other resources and free downloads
to help you to live a long and healthy, functional life. My review articles and teaching materials
are complete with their corresponding medical and scientific references; you’re on solid
scientific footing, receiving evidence-based information on every topic on our website.
I strongly suggest you use our website, http://www.MeschinoHealth.com as an ongoing, reliable resource for health
and wellness information for both you and your family.
Visit http://www.MeschinoHealth.com for more information.