Statins and the Cholesterol Myth

In the UK, Statins are one of the standard group of drugs being given after a heart attack, regardless of having a  normal level of cholesterol on admission, as a secondary prevention for another heart attack. Throughout the years since 2004 in our hospital Trust, Atorvastatin have been the number one choice of drug where the prescription have been the highest dose of 80mg for a few years now, on occasions i have seen patients being prescribed 160mg. 

Statins have been proven to be effective in it's action of preventing cholesterol formation in the liver...or so they say. Recently, there have been studies that do not accept nor promote its' usage. 

Disclaimer: image from wheatbellyblog.com

How STATIN works 

This medicine controls the level of cholesterol in our blood by inhibiting an enzyme in the body that is needed to produce cholesterol, this then reduces our unhealthy levels of LDL cholesterol.

Our HDL and LDL cholesterol levels depend from our own body production and from food ingested in our diet. Anyone still remember FH? Where our cholesterol level is already raised from birth?

Statins can reduce the LDL level by 30% to 50%, including the triglyceride with slight increase in the HDL level.

So another solution can just be increasing HDL in our diet? Thoughts to ponder?

Statins also have been found to cause muscle wasting

Most patients complaint of muscle pains and fatigue, prompting them to discontinue this medication. 

A gene was found at the beginning stages of a muscle breakdown or muscle wasting. Researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston have  a preliminary result where this gene was found to be higher in their population studies who were given LOVASTATIN, compared to those who were not taking the drug. As they say preliminary, this information gives some understanding of the probable cause of muscle wasting.

Literature says that these effects usually become prominent after a few months after starting statins. More often than not, with patients where follow-up is no longer needed from their cardiologist, discontinuing their medications are not found out sooner than necessary. 

How detrimental this is to their health depends on where we stand with the issue regarding,

The Cholesterol Myth 

A colleague of mine sent me an article last year regarding this topic where the use of pharmacology have no effect whatsoever in controlling cholesterol. So far, I have not seen any changes to our practice, may it be from our cardiologists or from our pharmacists in the Trust.

There are a lot of articles online where they state that the use of statins are only being promoted by the pharmaceutical companies. In a few times that I have tried to do research about this, without me resorting to consider conspiracy theories, further research on my part is needed and try to be factual in my next post.

Although in saying that, a patient of mine refused before his statin for the reason that at his age, statins no longer work in his age group. He was in his late 70s, was a cardiologist and wrote a book about it.

Not forgetting my mom who is 91 years old, whose cholesterol level last year was way better than mine. Hers was too low making me feel embarrassed at that time.

Our diet in this time and age leaves nothing to be desired regarding our future health outcome with Coronary Heart Disease😂😂😂

I really need to do further research on this one and next in the series is the natural ways to decrease our LDL level through our diet.

References:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-cholesterol/in-depth/statin-side-effects/ART-20046013

https://www.medicinehow.com/statins/

https://www.verywell.com/muscle-pain-and-statins-698196