Oops! Cholesterol Does Not Cause Heart Disease

We’ve all been trained that cholesterol is the bad guy when it comes to heart disease, so we do everything we can to lower it to protect ourselves which includes taking statin drugs.

I was recently at my doctor’s office for a check-up (while wearing a mask, of course). There was a poster on the wall that said that high cholesterol rates only show up in half the cases of heart attacks. This means there is actually a low correlation between cholesterol and heart disease.

As a matter of fact, there is now research showing that older people who have high levels of LDL cholesterol does not lead to an early death. Instead, these people lived the longest when compared to patients who had low LDLs that were untreated and those who were taking statins.

This raises another question. How effective are statins in extending a person’s life? A meta-analysis of 11 statin drug studies found that statins postponed a person’s death by 3.2 to 4.1 days. In addition, you may have to deal with side effects which can include muscle pain and muscle damage, type 2 diabetes, live damage, among others.

Not focusing on cholesterol has also led to the popularity and effectiveness of the Ketone Diet. So… how about having some nuts and dairy products in our regular diet.
(Reported Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology 2018)