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With the “Corona” hysteria raging through the world and economies and fundamental freedoms collapsing under government imposed “lockdowns,” you may wonder what happened to the real killers, the degenerative diseases that we were so worried about until the beginning of this year’s Spring. Did they vanish ? Of course they didn’t. Globally, each year, some 18 million people still die of cardiovascular disease. Not of “Corona.”
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CardioVascular Mortality … does reducing Cholesterol help ?
When millions and millions of people take cholesterol lowering drugs, mostly statins, why is it that cardiovascular disease continues to be the leading cause of death worldwide ? The answer is clear and simple. This remedy that is recommended by “organized medicine” and the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t work. Put more briefly: Statins don’t work. Citing from a study recently published in the British Medical journal, “between 2002 and 2013, statin use in the US nearly doubled, cholesterol levels are falling, yet cardiovascular deaths appear to be on the rise. In Sweden, recent widespread and increasing utilisation of statins did not correlate with any significant reduction in acute myocardial infarction or mortality, while in Belgium a very modest reduction in cardiovascular events was reported between 1999 and 2005, but primarily in elderly individuals not taking statins. These population studies suggest that, despite the widespread use of statins, there has been no accompanying decline in the risk of cardiovascular events or cardiovascular mortality. In fact, there is some evidence that statin usage may lead to unhealthy behaviours that may actually increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. The evidence presented in this analysis adds to the chorus that challenges our current approach to cardiovascular disease prevention through targeted reductions of LDL-C.” ([I]) LDL-C stands for Low Density Lipoprotein – Cholesterol, commonly know as the “bad” type of cholesterol.
How can so many doctors be so wrong ?
It’s rather easy to put the blame on the greedy pharmaceutical industry, although, admittedly, it does play a major role in this disaster, especially in keeping it going. No, the blame must be put where it belongs. And that is on the individual doctors who persist in prescribing higher and higher doses of statins to more and more patients without any noticeable benefit for the latter. They persist in believing in a theory that was developed some 60 years ago by Ansel Keys, an American physiologist who studied the relationship between nutrition and health. Keys was more of an activist zealot than a scientist, so that, even though his theory was based on disputable and inconclusive research, he did manage to get his theory accepted by “organized medicine,” public health and government officials, politicians and the food and pharmaceutical industries. He was able to get his very narrow and erroneous way of looking at cardiovascular health accepted around the world. ([ii]) Generations of medical students and dietitians have been and still are being indoctrinated with the fallacious idea that saturated fats must be replaced by unsaturated oils and that lowering cholesterol will remedy cardiovascular disease. In terms of “Corona,” the majority of our medical professionals has apparently developed a kind of “herd immunity” against irrefutable scientific evidence that undermines their belief and assumed authority. Perhaps, it is this “immunity” that defines them and their limitations.
No benefits means … no benefits !
In the cited study, the researchers state the matter quite clearly: “To validate the theory that reducing LDL-C [the “bad” cholesterol] reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease (the lipid hypothesis), LDL-C lowering interventions must be efficacious. Considering that dozens of RCTs of LDL-C reduction have failed to demonstrate a consistent benefit, we should question the validity of this theory.” Yes, we should, especially because the researchers’ objective analysis “highlights the discordance between a well-researched clinical guideline written by experts and empirical evidence gleaned from dozens of clinical trials of cholesterol reduction. It further underscores the ongoing debate about lowering cholesterol in general and the use of statins in particular. In this analysis over three-quarters of the cholesterol lowering trials reported no mortality benefit and nearly half reported no cardiovascular benefit at all.”
The Big Fat Fallacy
The authors of the cited study are so clear and unequivocal in their findings and wordings, that it is worthwhile to let them continue their story: “The widely held theory that there is a linear relationship between the degree of LDL-C reduction and the degree of cardiovascular risk reduction is undermined by the fact that some [clinical trials] with very modest reductions of LDL-C reported cardiovascular benefits while others with much greater degrees of LDL-C reduction did not […].” In one of the graphic presentations in the article, the authors show this lack of exposure–response relationship and the fact that there is no correlation between the percent reduction in LDL-C and the absolute risk reduction in cardiovascular events. “Moreover,” so they continue, “consider that the Minnesota Coronary Experiment, a 4-year long [clinical trial] of a low-fat diet involving 9423 subjects, actually reported an increase in mortality and cardiovascular events despite a 13% reduction in total cholesterol.”
The “endpoint” of your life is not the “endpoint” of the clinical studies
The problem with all these studies that are focused on lowering cholesterol is that even though some of them show a modest lowering of the cholesterol, the cardiovascular mortality rates are not affected. So, lowering your cholesterol will not delay the moment you die. How can this be explained ? Well, all these clinical studies have a so called “endpoint.” A study-endpoint must state precisely what it is that will be measured and how a drug influences the measured values. When the “endpoint” is the level of “bad cholesterol,” a study may show a significant or modest result, but this result masks the endpoint that most patients are interested in: their own mortal endpoint. That is the endpoint your doctor and you should be really interested in. If that vital endpoint is not influenced by taking a drug that was studied for affecting a different endpoint, the study may have been successful, but you’ll die anyway. The theory behind statins is that the cholesterol-lowering endpoint is somehow correlated with the mortality endpoint. The cited study shows that this correlation does not exist. It is a belief, a dogma, an ideology, a fata morgana, wishful thinking, whatever you may call it. Taking statins won’t delay the “endpoint” of your life. If your doctor would pay attention, he would know this. To be honest, he should know this !
What are YOU going to do ?
Now that YOU know this, what are YOU going to do to ensure your cardiovascular health ? Don’t ask me. Ask anyone in your family or talk about it with friends and colleagues, and all of them will give you the “everybody knows” answers offhand. Don’t eat too much. Use alcohol in modest amounts. Start exercising at home, outdoors or in the Gym. Avoid pure sugar. Eat foods as fresh and as natural as possible. Quit or reduce smoking. Be happy. Don’t sit on your couch watching television every evening. Some may even advise taking food supplements such as vitamins C and E, the mineral magnesium and antioxidative and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients such as OPCs. When it comes to OPCs, some may even advise you to take Masquelier’s OPCs for their proven cardiovascular benefits. Some will insist that you should control your level of cholesterol. That’s fine with me. Send them this article or tell them that they might just as well stop believing that replacing saturated fats by unsaturated ones and taking cholesterol-lowering drugs will postpone the day they’ll die of a cardiovascular indicent. It won’t.
[I] Hit or miss: the new cholesterol targets; Robert DuBroff, Aseem Malhotra, Michel de Lorgeril; BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine; 2020; doi:10.1136/bmjebm-2020-111413.
[ii] The story is well documented in the book The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz | Jan 6, 2015 Lie.
