New Study Finds Cholesterol Levels Not a Major Factor in Heart Disease

Volume 15 Issue 84

A new study in Norway indicates possible errors in the way cholesterol levels are used to calculate the risk of heart disease.
The study’s authors say that clinical and public health recommendations regarding the ‘dangers’ of cholesterol should be revised. The study actually found that women with elevated cholesterol levels lived longer, and suffered fewer strokes and heart attacks than women with low cholesterol. They also said that “moderately elevated cholesterol (by current standards) may prove to be not only harmless but even beneficial”, especially for women.
A team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology reviewed the case histories of 52,087 men and women between 20 and 74 years old, following them for more than a decade. When they included adjustments for age, smoking and blood pressure, the study found that women with high cholesterol (more than 270 mg/dl) had a 28 percent lower mortality risk than women with low cholesterol (under 193 mg/dl). The risks for heart disease, cardiac arrest and stroke all declined as cholesterol levels rose.
This new perspective flies in the face of accepted medical theory and practice regarding cholesterol. It would appear that conventional medicine’s pronouncements demonizing cholesterol has been endangering lives more than saving them.
Meanwhile, Big Pharma has been riding the crest of its own massive, multi-billion-dollar wave of statin drug sales. Statin drugs are intended to lower cholesterol levels. But with them comes a list of nasty side effects, a few of which are quite serious.
The most common statin side effects include:
• headache
• difficulty sleeping
• flushing of the skin
• muscle aches, tenderness, or weakness
• drowsiness / weakness
• dizziness
• nausea and/or vomiting
• abdominal cramping and/or pain
• bloating and/or gas
• diarrhea
• constipation
• rash
The worst side effects of statin drugs involve damage to muscle tissue, causing kidney damage or even kidney failure, and death.
Statins have been on the market since the 1980s, and are one of the most-prescribed drug types in the world, with an estimated 17 million users in the U.S. alone.
Alternative practitioners, numerous conventional doctors and even some scientists, have been claiming for decades that the role of cholesterol in the body and its relationship to heart disease is completely misunderstood. They say the science showing the benefits of statin drugs is flawed, and the drugs themselves are simply too dangerous.
Source: PubMed, September 25, 2011, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21951982