Healthy Living; The Truth About Cholesterol

By Andi Hale, Digging Deeper Media

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Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that occurs naturally in your body. Many people think that cholesterol is harmful, but the truth is that it’s essential for your body to function. Cholesterol contributes to the membrane structure of every cell in your body.

Your body also needs it to make hormones and vitamin D, as well as perform various other essential functions such as making digestive bile acids in the intestine. Simply put, you could not survive without it. Your body makes all the cholesterol it needs, but it also absorbs a relatively small amount of cholesterol from some foods, such as eggs, meat, and full-fat dairy products.

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For decades, people have been told that the dietary cholesterol in foods raises blood cholesterol levels and causes heart disease. This idea may have been a rational conclusion based on the available science 50 years ago, but more recent evidence calls this into question.

More and more, I find that the concept of number needed to treat (NNT)—how many patients have to be treated to achieve a specific outcome excluding those who would have experienced that outcome without the intervention—very compelling when considering the risk/benefit of an intervention. All of a sudden, a drug ad that asserts a 36% reduction in heart attacks goes from seeming very good to being quite questionable when the NNT shows that 99.7 of people would need to take the drug for 3.3 years to prevent 1 heart attack (very little effect on mortality).

Joseph Pizzorno, ND, Editor in Chief of Integr Med (Encinitas). 2014 Jun

In the article, The Vilification of Cholesterol (for Profit?), Pizzorno points out that statin manufacturers assert a 36% reduction in heart attacks. But in order to achieve that percentage, the data shows that 99.7 of people would need to take the drug for 3.3 years to prevent 1 heart attack (very little effect on mortality).

So, as we always suspect, it’s all about the money. It’s Big Pharma’s #1 motto:

Keep them sick for a lifetime and profits will roll in.

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These 2 statins are very well known to cause cognitive decline, especially memory loss and confusion, and would explain why he sometimes forgets where he is and rambles about nonsense that no one can understand.

In the most recent White House health summary of Biden, the doctor said “The President’s lipid levels remain remarkably low on his current regimen of Rosuvastatin”, as if that was a good thing, which it isn’t.

Cholesterol and LDL are horrible markers for heart disease risk and should not be fixated on or lowered, especially into old age, and the focus should instead be on metabolic health and insulin resistance. Lowering cholesterol with statins It will only further expedite Biden’s cognitive decline and will eventually bring him to full blown dementia and Alzheimer’s, which he obviously has strong signs of already.

The diet heart hypothesis with the vilification of saturated fats and saying it causes heart disease with raising LDL and cholesterol, is one of the greatest scientific inversions of all time and the exact opposite of the truth. I’ll link some lectures below that will fully demonstrate this truth with in depth reviews of the evidence and mechanisms of heart disease as it relates to cholesterol, metabolic health, etc.

Responses to this tweet were insightful and telling.

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Statin side effects include:

• Headache
• Difficulty sleeping
• Flushing of the skin
• Muscle aches, tenderness, or weakness (myalgia)
• Drowsiness
• Dizziness
• Nausea or vomiting
• Abdominal cramping or pain
• Bloating or gas
• Diarrhea
• Constipation
• Rash
• Low levels of blood platelets
• Nausea
• Hair loss
• Pins and needles sensations, such as pricking, numbness, or tingling on your skin
• Liver inflammation, which can make you feel like you have the flu
• Pancreas inflammation, which can cause stomach pain
• Skin problems such as rashes or acne
• Sexual problems, such as erectile dyfunction or a low sex drive 

Statins also carry warnings that memory loss, mental confusion, neuropathy, high blood sugar, and type 2 diabetes are possible side effects. It’s important to remember that statins may also interact with other medications you take.

Statins are linked to a few rare but potentially serious side effects, including:

• Myositis, which is inflammation of the muscles. The risk of muscle injury increases when certain other medications are taken with statins. For example, if you take a combination of a statin and a fibrate — another cholesterol-reducing drug — the risk of muscle damage increases greatly compared to someone who takes a statin alone.
• Elevated levels of CPK, or creatine kinase, a muscle enzyme that when elevated, can cause muscle pain, mild inflammation, and muscle weakness. This condition, though uncommon, can take a long time to resolve.
• Rhabdomyolysis, extreme muscle inflammation and damage. With this condition, muscles all over the body become painful and weak. The severely damaged muscles release proteins into the blood that collect in the kidneys. The kidneys can become damaged trying to eliminate a large amount of muscle breakdown caused by statin use. This can ultimately lead to kidney failure or even death. Fortunately, rhabdomyolysis is extremely rare. It happens in less than one in 10,000 people taking statins.

The bottom line

Statins can cause more harm than good in the bulk of patients prescribed them. Low cholesterol is just as bad as extremely high levels. And just as in anything in life, moderation is best, natural is best & chemicals are bad.

Dr. Berg has a video that give you more specifics here: