The latest news

The very latest news -- a piece that demonstrates convincingly that the statins do much harm while doing little, if any, good and that people with high levels of cholesterol, be it LDL or HDL, live longer.  I've known this for years and am on record as having told friend and foe that, if a doctor told me that my cholesterol was high, I'd be singing "Joy to the World!"

Here the UrL that takes you to "Statin Nation — How Millions Are Damaged in a Post-Health World."

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/06/02/a-statin-nation.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20190602Z1&et_cid=DM292374&et_rid=630055154

Cholesterol NOT the enemy

Whoever you are, informed layman, medical professional, even Cardiologist, if you believe that statins are good for us, I chalenge you to read what follows and then to maintain that statins are good for us.  I have excerpted a list of some of the side effects of Lipitor for you, as an intro.  You will find that list again below, in the story itself.

Read above all the second story: “People with high levels of cholesterol live longer.”  Pay special attention to the explanation why this truth has been so carefully kept under wraps.

Some of the Well-known Side Effects of Lipitor

[From “The Cholesterol Myth Has Been Busted — Yet Again” at -----> http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/05/03/cholesterol-myth-busted.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20170503Z1_C&et_cid=DM144637&et_rid=1992199367]

Increased risk of diabetes (there are several mechanisms for this, including increasing insulin resistance and raising your blood sugar)

Acute liver disease    

Muscle pain, tenderness or weakness

Rhabdomyolysis (a condition involving the death of muscle fibers),    

Acute kidney failure / Chronic liver dysfunction

Reduced ketone production.42 Ketones are water-soluble fat nutrients important for tissue health.

They're also important molecular signaling molecules    

Depletes your body of essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients, including CoQ10 and vitamin K2, both of which are important for cardiovascular and heart health    

Impaired fertility and reduced sex drive.

Importantly, statins are a Category X medication, meaning they cause serious birth defects, so they should NEVER be used by a pregnant woman or women planning a pregnancy

Increased risk of cancer. Long-term statin use (10 years or longer) more than doubles women's risk of two major types of breast cancer: invasive ductal carcinoma and invasive lobular carcinoma43    

Nerve damage. Research has shown statin treatment lasting longer than two years causes "definite damage to peripheral nerves"44    

Reduced muscle and nervous system coordination

Diarrhea and/or constipation    
        
Dizziness  / Headache

Central nervous system toxicity / Endocrine dysfunction         

Abdominal pain / Cataracts   /  Decreased heart function

 



The Cholesterol Myth Has Been Busted — Yet Again
By Dr. Mercola


Story at-a-glance

    A 40-year-old previously unpublished trial shows that while replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil lowered total cholesterol by 14 percent, for every 30 point drop in total cholesterol there was a 22 percent increased chance of death
    Many other trials have also found that replacing saturated fats with vegetable oils increase mortality risk from all causes, including coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease
    Processed vegetable oils contribute to devastating attacks to your health and attacks your brain in several ways, thereby contributing to and worsening neurologic disorders

Pediatricians Now Advised  'It's Dangerous to Call Breastfeeding Natural'

Here the URL for the original:
 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/05/03/cholesterol-myth-busted.aspx?utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20170503Z1_C&et_cid=DM144637&et_rid=1992199367

    For the past four decades, the U.S. government has warned that eating cholesterol-rich foods such as eggs would raise your LDL cholesterol (inappropriately referred to as "bad" cholesterol) and promote heart disease.    
    Alas, decades' worth of research utterly failed to demonstrate this correlation, and the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans1,2,3,4,5 finally addressed this scientific shortcoming, announcing "cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption."6
    This is good news, since dietary cholesterol plays an important role in brain health and memory formation, and is indispensable for the building of cells and the production of stress and sex hormones, as well as vitamin D. (When sunlight strikes your bare skin, the cholesterol in your skin is converted into vitamin D.)
    Unfortunately, the dietary guidelines still cling to outdated misinformation about saturated fat, wrongly accusing it of raising LDL and contributing to heart disease. Here, science has shown that saturated fat only raises the safe, fluffy LDL particles. It also increases HDL, which is beneficial for your heart.
    The guidelines became and are still confusing because the basic premise was wrong. Dietary fat is indeed associated with heart disease, but it's the processed vegetable oils, which are loaded with trans fats and oxidized omega-6 fats, that are the problem, not saturated fats.
    The introduction of industrialized, highly processed and frequently heated omega-6 vegetable oils distorted the vitally important omega 6-to-3 ratio, causing metabolic catastrophes. The problem was further exacerbated by replacing saturated fat with refined carbohydrates, which were incorrectly viewed as a healthier option, thanks to misinformation created and spread by the sugar industry.

Impairs Electrical Storage Potential of Your Cells

    Nutrition and biochemistry are clearly important to your health, but so is your body's electrical system. All our membranes are made of fats that are insulators and connected through a conductor. This arrangement sets up a biological capacitor to store electrons — but only if the fats are healthy.
    If you consume damaged fats, or worse, heated and hydrogenated oils, the fatty acids in the cell membrane essentially become nonfunctional and unable to store body voltage, thus increasing the risk for disease. This is one of many reasons why it is so vital to eat healthy fats.
Unpublished Research Undermines Decades of Dietary Advice
    Ancel Keys was one of the most prominent nutritional researchers of the mid-20th century. He gained enormous professional and influential prominence and his views were widely adopted by professional and public health organizations. His research formed the foundation for all of the low-fat recommendations that followed. Interestingly, some of his own follow-up research actually undermined his hypotheses on cholesterol and saturated fat, but these findings were never published.
    Had they been, the cholesterol and low-fat myths might never have gained the same kind of traction. The four decades' old study in question was unearthed by Dr. Christopher E. Ramsden, who specializes in digging up and reevaluating lost studies that challenge mainstream health advice.
    Keys, who was largely funded by the sugar industry, is believed to have been responsible for suppressing this damning study, as it doesn't support his original hypothesis. Only parts of the trial's results were ever published, leaving out the controversial finding that replacing saturated fats with vegetable oil had no benefit on mortality. As reported by Scientific American:
          "Ramsden, of the National Institutes of Health, unearthed raw data from a 40-year-old study, which challenges the dogma that eating vegetable fats instead of animal fats is good for the heart. The study, the largest gold-standard experiment testing that idea, found the opposite …
          Although the study is more than just another entry in the long-running nutrition wars — it is more rigorous than the vast majority of research on the topic — Ramsden makes no claims that it settles the question. Instead, he said, his discovery and analysis of long-lost data underline how the failure to publish the results of clinical trials can undermine truth."

Saturated Fat Vindicated in Largest Most Rigorous Trial of Its Kind

    The study,18 conducted from 1968 to 1973, included 9,423 participants between the ages of 20 and 97, making it the largest trial of its kind. The participants were also residents of state mental hospitals and a nursing home, making it one of the most rigorously detailed studies as the meals of every person were carefully logged.
    On the average, each patient was followed for about 15 months. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups, receiving either:
    A then-standard diet containing 18.5 percent saturated fat from animal fats such as milk, cheese, beef and shortening, and 5 percent unsaturated fat, based on total calories
    A diet in which 50 percent of the saturated fats were replaced with vegetable oil (a mainstay in today's processed foods) and corn oil margarine (total 9 percent saturated fat and 13 percent unsaturated fat)
    After analyzing the data, Ramsden and his team found that vegetable oils lowered total cholesterol levels by an average of 14 percent after one year. However, this lower cholesterol did not result in improved health and longevity, which is the conventional belief. Instead, the research showed that the lower the cholesterol, the higher the risk of dying!
    For every 30 point drop in total cholesterol there was a 22 percent increased chance of death. In the 65 and older category, those who received vegetable oil experienced roughly 15 percent more deaths compared to seniors in the saturated fat group. The vegetable oil also did not result in fewer cases of atherosclerosis or heart attacks.
    On the contrary, autopsies revealed both groups had similar levels of arterial plaque, but 41 percent of the vegetable oil group showed signs of at least one heart attack compared to just 22 percent of those in the saturated fat group. According to the authors:
    "Available evidence from randomized controlled trials shows that replacement of saturated fat in the diet with linoleic acid [vegetable oil] effectively lowers serum cholesterol but does not support the hypothesis that this translates to a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease or all causes."

Why Vegetable Oils Are so Bad for Your Health

    Later this year I will post my interview with Dr. Cate Shanahan, author of "Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food," in which she delves into the profound harms done by processed vegetable oils in the modern diet. To learn more, keep your eyes open for that interview.
    According to Shanahan, vegetable oil is your brain's worst enemy, attacking it "at seven distinct vulnerability points using seven distinct strategies. All seven strategies are at work in causing autism and other childhood neurologic disorders." This includes:

             Promoting gut inflammation and leaky gut. This inflammation often causes heartburn, which can serve as a red flag. Unfortunately, many misattribute heartburn to spicy foods rather than the more significant culprit, namely vegetable oils
            Disrupting the regulation of blood flow through the arteries in your brain and depleting your brain of antioxidants
             Turning your immune system against you by affecting your white blood cells (immune system cells), causing disease and nerve degenerating reactions
             Attacking the nerve cellular architecture. "Vegetable oils cause an overload of oxidative reactions inside the cell, leading to the accumulation of intracellular trash. When this affects our white matter, we lose our mobility. When it affects our gray matter, we lose our personalities and our connections to the world," Shanahan explains in her book20
             Impairing brain development through mutagenic effects on DNA and altered epigenetic expression.

    Other reasons why vegetable oils cause heart disease and other health problems include the following:

             Omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, when taken in large amounts, cannot be burned for fuel. Instead, they're incorporated into your cellular and mitochondrial membranes, where they are highly susceptible to oxidative damage. As a result, your metabolic machinery is damaged. Vegetable oils made from genetically engineered (GE) crops (as most are) have additional health risks, as they tend to be loaded with toxic herbicide residues like Roundup.
             While your body needs some omega-6, most get far too much of it compared to omega-3, and this lopsided ratio can also have adverse health consequences.
             When heated, vegetable oils tend to oxidize. According to Dr. Fred Kummerow,21 who has researched lipids and heart disease for eight decades, oxidized cholesterol is the real culprit that causes heart disease. By triggering inflammation, it promotes the clogging of arteries and associated cardiovascular problems, including heart attacks.

Many Studies Have Debunked the Saturated Fat Myth

    Several other studies have also demonstrated that replacing saturated fats with vegetable oils is a bad idea. While the benefits for cardiovascular mortality and risk-factor reduction have been mixed, none of these trials showed that restricting saturated fats reduced total mortality:
    Recovered data from the Sydney Diet Heart Study: In 2013, Ramsden's team analyzed four trials looking at the effects of replacing saturated fats with vegetable oils. Replacing saturated fats with linoleic acid-rich vegetable oils increased mortality risk from all causes, including coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease.
    The Oslo Study (1968): A study of 412 men, aged 30-64 years, found eating a diet low in saturated fats and high in polyunsaturated fats had no influence on rates of sudden death.
    L.A. Veterans Study (1969): A study of 850 elderly men that lasted for six years is widely used to support the diet-heart hypothesis. No significant difference was found in rates of sudden death or heart attack among men eating a mostly animal-foods diet and those eating a high-vegetable oil diet. However, more non-cardiac deaths, including from cancer, were seen in the vegetable oil group.
    London Soybean Oil Trial (1968): This study of nearly 400 men that lasted for two to seven years found no difference in heart attack rate between men following a diet low in saturated fats and high in soybean oil and those following an ordinary diet.
The U.S. Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT): Sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, this is another study that is highly misleading. It compared mortality rates and eating habits of over 12,000 men, and the finding that was widely publicized was that people who ate a low saturated fat and low-cholesterol diet had a marginal reduction in coronary heart disease. However, their mortality from all causes was actually higher.
    A 2013 editorial published in the BMJ described how the avoidance of saturated fat actually promotes poor health in a number of ways. As stated by the author, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, an interventional cardiology specialist registrar at Croydon University Hospital in London:
    "The mantra that saturated fat must be removed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease has dominated dietary advice and guidelines for almost four decades. Yet scientific evidence shows that this advice has, paradoxically, increased our cardiovascular risk ...”
    The aspect of dietary saturated fat that is believed to have the greatest influence on cardiovascular risk is elevated concentrations of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. Yet the reduction in LDL cholesterol from reducing saturated fat intake seems to be specific to large, buoyant (type A) LDL particles, when in fact it is the small, dense (type B) particles (responsive to carbohydrate intake) that are implicated in cardiovascular disease.
    Indeed, recent prospective cohort studies have not supported any significant association between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular risk. Instead, saturated fat has been found to be protective."
    A 2014 meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (which included data from 76 studies and more than a half-million people) found that those who consume higher amounts of saturated fat have no more heart disease than those who consume less. Moreover, those who ate higher amounts of unsaturated fat, including both (healthy) olive oil and (unhealthy) corn oil — both of which are recommended over saturated fats — did not have lower incidence of heart disease.
    A 2015 meta-analysis published in the BMJ also failed to find an association between high levels of saturated fat in the diet and heart disease. Nor did they find an association between saturated fat consumption and other life-threatening diseases like stroke or type 2 diabetes.
    In summary, industrially processed, highly refined vegetable oils do not reduce your risk of dying from heart disease. Put another way, saturated fats do not increase your risk of dying from heart disease either. Moreover, reducing cholesterol is not necessarily a sign of improved health; it may actually increase your risk of death. As noted by Ramsden:
    "One would expect that the more you lowered cholesterol, the better the outcome. But in this case the opposite association was found. The greater degree of cholesterol-lowering was associated with a higher, rather than a lower, risk of death."

Statins Revisited

    The cholesterol myth has been a boon to the pharmaceutical industry, as cholesterol-lowering statins — often prescribed as a primary prevention against heart attack and stroke related to high cholesterol — have become one of the most frequently used drugs on the market. In 2012, nearly 28 percent of American adults over the age of 40 reported using a statin.
    Updated cholesterol treatment guidelines issued by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (AHA) in 2013 made another 9.3 million Americans eligible candidates for the drug. However, researchers have repeatedly warned the cardiovascular risk calculator used may be overestimating your risk by anywhere from 75 to 150 percent. This means even healthy people at low risk for heart problems are being turned to statins.
    What's worse, the guideline also removed the recommendation to use the lowest drug dose possible. Instead, the sole focus is on statin-only treatment at higher dosages. The guidelines also ignore the density of the lipoproteins (the LDL and HDL). Large fluffy LDL particles are not harmful. Only small dense LDL particles can potentially cause problems as they can squeeze through the lining of your arteries. If they oxidize, they can cause damage and inflammation.
    This means you could potentially have an LDL level of 190 but still be at low risk as long as your LDLs are large, and your HDL-to-total cholesterol ratio is above 24 percent. As mentioned earlier, saturated fat not only increases your HDL, it also increases large, fluffy LDLs, which is what you want.

Two Leading Cholesterol Guidelines Differ in Their Recommendations

    Now, researchers have revisited the cholesterol guidelines, noting there are significant differences between the two leading guidelines in the U.S.34 In 2016, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) released its own cholesterol treatment guidelines, which suggests statins should not be used unless the patient has at least one other risk factor (such as high blood pressure, diabetes or smoking) in addition to having a 10 percent risk on the cardiovascular risk calculator.  
    Under these guidelines, an estimated 17.1 million Americans are candidates for a statin, compared to the 26.4 million covered by the American College of Cardiology/AHA guidelines. The differences between the two guidelines have caused a great deal of debate among experts.
    Which one's better? As Michael Pencina, a professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and lead author of the study told CNN:35 "There's generally confusion on who should be getting statins. I don't think we have the perfect guideline yet."

In my view, the number needed to treat offers compelling clues to the overall uselessness of statins. According to an analysis by the USPSTF, published last year:

    100 people need to take a statin as a primary preventive for five years in order for one or two people to avoid a heart attack, and none will actually live longer
    250 people need to take a statin for up to six years in order to prevent a single death from any cause

    A 2015 report published in the Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology concluded that "statistical deception created the appearance that statins are safe and effective in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease."
    By using relative risk reduction, the trivial benefits of statins are amplified. If you look at absolute risk, statin drugs benefit a mere 1 percent of the population. As noted by the USPSTF, this report found that out of 100 people treated with the drugs, one person will have one less heart attack.

Statins Do Not Reduce Mortality, and Can Seriously Harm Your Health

    Other studies have also found that statins provide no reduction in mortality when used preventatively — even in at-risk groups. This strongly suggests statins have even less of a benefit among those already at low risk of heart disease. Recent research39 has also confirmed that high cholesterol is not linked with heart disease in the elderly, prompting the researchers to conclude that reducing cholesterol levels with statin drugs is "a waste of time."
    Indeed, Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D. and senior scientist at MIT, believes heart disease is a cholesterol deficiency problem, which is essentially the converse of the conventional paradigm. Still, her hypothesis appears to be supported by studies showing people with higher levels of cholesterol actually live longer than those with lower levels.

Aside from being a "waste of time" and not doing anything to reduce mortality, statins also carry with them a list of over 200 side effects and clinical challenges, including:

Increased risk of diabetes (there are several mechanisms for this, including increasing insulin resistance and raising your blood sugar)

Acute liver disease    

Muscle pain, tenderness or weakness

Rhabdomyolysis (a condition involving the death of muscle fibers),    

Acute kidney failure
            
Chronic liver dysfunction

Reduced ketone production.42 Ketones are water-soluble fat nutrients important for tissue health.

They're also important molecular signaling molecules    

Depletes your body of essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients, including CoQ10 and vitamin K2, both of which are important for cardiovascular and heart health    

Impaired fertility and reduced sex drive.

Importantly, statins are a Category X medication, meaning they cause serious birth defects, so they should NEVER be used by a pregnant woman or women planning a pregnancy

Increased risk of cancer. Long-term statin use (10 years or longer) more than doubles women's risk of two major types of breast cancer: invasive ductal carcinoma and invasive lobular carcinoma43    

Nerve damage. Research has shown statin treatment lasting longer than two years causes "definite damage to peripheral nerves"44    

Reduced muscle and nervous system coordination

Diarrhea and/or constipation            Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!
                            What REALLY Causes Heart Disease
                            by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
        
Dizziness    

Headache

Central nervous system toxicity    

Abdominal pain    

Cataracts

Decreased heart function    

Endocrine dysfunction    

    As a general rule, cholesterol-lowering drugs are not required or prudent for the majority of people — especially if both high cholesterol and longevity run in your family. Also keep in mind that your overall cholesterol level says very little about your risk for heart disease.
    Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates like fructose and refined grains generates a rapid rise in blood glucose and then insulin to compensate for the rise in blood sugar. The insulin released from eating too many carbs promotes fat accumulation and makes it more difficult for your body to shed excess weight. Excess fat, particularly around your belly, is one of the major contributors to heart disease
    Iron can be a very potent oxidative stress, so if you have excess iron levels you can damage your blood vessels and increase your risk of heart disease. Ideally, you should monitor your ferritin levels and make sure they are not much above 80 ng/ml. The simplest way to lower them if they are elevated is to donate your blood. If that is not possible you can have a therapeutic phlebotomy and that will effectively eliminate the excess iron from your body


Statin Scam: People with Higher Cholesterol Live Longer than People with Low Cholesterol

http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/statin-scam-people-with-higher-cholesterol-live-longer-than-people-with-low-cholesterol/

Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News Editor

    Here is a fact that has been known for quite a long time, but it is still news to many people:

People with higher cholesterol levels live longer than people with lower cholesterol levels.

Read that again, slowly, and no, it is not a typo.

The reason why this fact is not well-known in the general public is because it would put a huge dent into a $100 BILLION drug market for statin drugs – drugs that lower your cholesterol. With approximately one out every four Americans over the age of 50 currently prescribed a statin drug, a drug with very serious side effects, this is certainly one issue you should investigate yourself. Please don’t take my word on it, nor anybody else’s.

What the Research Says Concerning Cholesterol Levels and Mortality Rates

This is but a sampling of the research on the fact that low cholesterol is dangerous, while high cholesterol is beneficial.

Study: Low total cholesterol is associated with high total mortality in patients with coronary heart disease, European Heart Journal, January 1997

Quote:

    The relative risk of non-cardiac death was 2.27 times higher in the low cholesterol group than in the controls (95% CI: 1.49-3.45), whereas the risk of cardiac death was the same in both groups relative risk 1.09; 95% CI: 0.76-1.56). The most frequent cause of non-cardiac death associated with low total cholesterol was cancer. These results in patients with coronary heart disease add weight to previous studies associating low total cholesterol with an increased risk of non-cardiac death.
———–
Study: Low Serum Cholesterol and Mortality, American Heart Association, June 1994

Quote:

    Falling TC (total cholesterol) level was accompanied by a subsequent increased risk of death caused by some cancers (hemopoietic, esophageal, and prostate), noncardiovascular noncancer causes (particularly liver disease), and all causes. The risk-factor–adjusted rate of all-cause mortality was 30% higher (relative risk, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.06 to 1.59) among persons with a decline from middle (180 to 239 mg/dL) to low (<180 mg/dL) TC than in persons remaining at a stable middle level.

Comment: The American Heart Association has known since at least 1994 that low cholesterol is associated with an increased risk of death. Of course, they theorize that the diseases the people died from caused the low cholesterol – something this study did not prove (because it cannot – it can only show associations or links). But the AHA does not deny that low cholesterol is associated with increased death.
———–
Study: Low Serum Cholesterol: Hazardous to Health?, Elaine N. Meilahn, MD, American Heart Association, 1995

Quote:

    Is having very low cholesterol levels hazardous to health? There is evidence to suggest that it might be.
———–
Study: Relation between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and survival to age 85 years in men (from the VA normative aging study). The American Journal of Cardiology, April 2011

Quote:

    In conclusion, after adjusting for other factors associated with longevity, higher HDL cholesterol levels were significantly associated with survival to 85 years of age.
———–

Study: The statin-low cholesterol-cancer conundrum. QJM, Monthly Journal of the Association of Physicians, December 2011

Quote:

Several cohort studies of healthy people have shown that low cholesterol is a risk marker for future cancer.

Study: Is the use of cholesterol in mortality risk algorithms in clinical guidelines valid? Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, February 2012

Quote:

Our study provides an updated epidemiological indication of possible errors in the CVD risk algorithms of many clinical guidelines. If our findings are generalizable, clinical and public health recommendations regarding the ‘dangers’ of cholesterol should be revised. This is especially true for women, for whom moderately elevated cholesterol (by current standards) may prove to be not only harmless but even beneficial.
———–
Study: PLANT STEROLS LOWER CHOLESTEROL, BUT INCREASE RISK FOR CORONARY HEART DISEASE, OnLine Journal of Biological Sciences, 2014

Quote:

It is widely accepted that cholesterol lowering is healthful per se. We challenge this view, with particular reference to plant sterols. Cholesterol lowering should not be an end in itself. The objective must be to reduce health outcomes, such as incidence of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). We hypothesised that plant sterols may lower cholesterol, but not CHD. We found the outcome on CHD in fact to be detrimental.———–

    As noted above, this list is a sampling of the research showing the benefits of high cholesterol, and the problems with low cholesterol, and is certainly not a comprehensive list.
The Myth of “Good” and “Bad” Cholesterol
    When a medical belief has been used to support a $100 BILLION drug industry, one can imagine the difficulty of confronting science that shows your basic premise, that high cholesterol is a hazard to your health, is flawed and lacking serious data.
    One of the ways in which the medical industry has tried to deal with the data on cholesterol, is to reclassify it as either “good” or “bad.” So the prevailing medical thinking today is now that “high density lipoproteins” cholesterol (HDL) is “good,” while “low density lipoproteins” cholesterol is “bad.”
    There’s just one problem with this kind of thinking: there is only one kind of cholesterol.
“Lipoproteins,” which can be measured in terms of their density, are what carry the cholesterol through our blood stream. There are studies showing that cholesterol with lower density lipoproteins have a positive association with clogged arteries leading to heart disease. But is this association a causative factor in heart disease?
    First, it is important to know that there is only one kind of cholesterol, and it is essential to life. Remove all the cholesterol in your body, and you die!  25% of your body’s cholesterol is in your brain, and it is in the walls of every cell in your body.
    In terms of cholesterol linked to low lipid proteins, Professor Fred Kummerow, who is a 99-year-old emeritus professor of comparative biosciences at the University of Illinois, states:

       “LDL is not a marker of heart disease,” Kummerow said. “It’s a marker of ApoB.” And ApoB is a marker of a lack of tryptophan, he said. (Source.)

    Professor Kummerow is not the only researcher to question the condemnation of LDL. Scientists at Tufts University looked at 201 cancer patients and 402 cancer-free patients. They found that cancer patients who never took cholesterol-lowering drugs on average had lower LDL cholesterol levels for an average of about 19 years prior to their cancer diagnosis. (Source.)
Statin Drugs have Serious Side Effects
    The serious side effects of statin drugs have been known for quite some time now, but the FDA did not issue any warnings until 2012. Yet statins had already been in the market for over a decade. Why did it take the FDA so long?
    Could it be it is because statin drugs are the most successful class of drugs of all time in terms of sales? Lipitor is by far the most profitable drug in the history of mankind among all pharmaceutical products, let alone being the most profitable cholesterol drug before its patent expired at the end of 2011. Sales to date from this one particular cholesterol-lowering statin drug have exceeded $140 billion.
    Lipitor benefited from the change in marketing laws in 1997 that allowed pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. to advertise their products directly to consumers. Pfizer convinced an entire generation of Americans that they needed a pill to lower their cholesterol in order to prevent heart disease, in what will go down as one of the most brilliant and unethical marketing schemes of all time.
    In late 2011, Pfizer’s patent on Lipitor expired. A couple of months later the FDA issued its first warnings against statin drugs, which include: liver injury, memory loss, diabetes, and muscle damage.
    Soon after issuing these warnings, the lawsuits started trickling in. Today, they have become a tidal wave. Since April this year (2014), over 1200 lawsuits have been filed by women against Pfizer claiming Lipitor caused them to become diabetics, and lawyers believe it could well exceed 10,000 cases against Lipitor.
    And type 2 diabetes is just one of the many side effects of statin drugs. For years, professional athletes have been warned to stay off statins because it is well known they cause muscle damage.
    A recent study shows women taking statin drugs double their risk of breast cancer.
Dr. Stephanie Seneff has linked statin use to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological diseases.
A study just published in the international  journal Drug Safety found a positive association between regular statin drug use and Bell’s palsy, a neurologic disorder.
The Statin Scam: Don’t Let it Ruin Your Health!

The statin scam has been exposed, but there are powerful sources at work in the medical system to keep it going.

    One of the best documentaries exposing the statin scam and interviewing doctors in the industry who have exposed it, was published last year on ABC in Australia. The medical authorities were not successful in preventing it from being aired on TV, but they forced ABC to remove them from their website.  We currently are using copies available on YouTube. Take some time to watch these important documentaries produced by medical doctors on the statin drug scam, and be informed!

HEART OF THE MATTER Part 1: The Cholesterol Myth: Dietary Villains     

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PS: Some time, when you have a little extra time, do a net search for <Big Pharma, Bid fines>.  You will find it hard to believe what you get to see.  Or go for <Big Pharma, billion dollar fines>.
Here is but one of scores of hits you will find:

Disgusting: Even Huge $11 Billion Fines Don’t Stop Big ...
http://naturalsociety.com/disgusting-11-billion-dollar-fines-wont-stop-big-pharma/
(NaturalSociety.com)What would you say if 10 of the top 26 pharmaceutical companies had been telling you bold faced lies about the drugs they sell you? Would you be upset? Irritated? Disgusted?  Maybe on a good day, bemused?

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