Massive sales of statin drugs are at the economic heart of the false cholesterol-heart hypothesis, which is why many doctors don’t dare to do other than prescribe statins to every patient with a high LDL number— or even a high total cholesterol number. Even women, even senior citizens, even black people— even though research only shows health benefits (fewer cardiac events) in middle-aged white males.
In this blog post I’m not going to question the wisdom of that— you can research it yourself if you are interested— but I am going to stick to one topic— the fact that statin drugs are known to deplete your body’s supply of CoQ10. This is so well known a Big Pharma company patented a statin drug combined with a CoQ10 supplement, but never manufactured it, lest it draw attention to a problem that was at the time relatively unknown.
What is CoQ10? It is a vitamin-like substance found in every cell in your body. Our bodies need CoQ10 to function! Statin drugs, which block your body’s production of cholesterol— both good and bad cholesterol— also blocks the production of CoQ10. This blockage is bad for your heart as well as for your skeletal muscles.
Even some doctors that loudly warn against the use of statins may use statins in a small patient group, not because it lowers cholesterol, but because it lowers inflammation, the real cause of heart disease. In male, middle-aged patients who have had heart attacks, especially if they won’t quit smoking and adopt a low-carb lifestyle, some statin-skeptic doctors do prescribe statins. But CoQ10 supplementation is necessary!
I’ve recently gone shopping for CoQ10 supplements both for myself and my 91-year-old mother. My mother went on statins about 20 years ago, and promptly developed full-blown diabetes. That made me a statin-skeptic, but not my mom. Now, she is having a hard time walking, and falls sometimes. I couldn’t get her to stop the statin as her nurse-practitioner is a true believer (or has to pretend to be.) So I got some CoQ10 for my mom. It was pricey!
In my own case, I would worry about going on a statin because of the CoQ10 and its cost. Medicaid will pay for my prescription drugs, but not for the CoQ10 I would need because of them! I have a hard enough time, on my Medicaid and SSI disability, to pay for my low-carb diet foods, not to mention my home heating (propane) costs!
As a believer in natural/nutritional remedies instead of going on drugs, I wish that Medicaid would have to pay for our supplements— at least those the doctor or physician’s assistant recommends! My PA recommended I take fish oil supplements years ago, but I stopped due to cost, and due to the fact I wanted a GOOD fish oil product and not the cheapest generic. Since reading The Great Cholesterol Myth, I’ve restarted a good fish oil as well as CoQ10— in part because both help with high blood pressure and I don’t want to go on drugs over that if I can help it.
Reading List on Cholesterol & Statins
If you are concerned about cholesterol and statin drugs, read these books— all have medical doctors as authors or co-authors, except for Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taube, who is a bestselling and well-respected author on scientific topics. I have read all of these and learned a lot.
Follow my blog with Bloglovin
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated, but are always welcome. Comments with swearing, spam comments, off-topic comments and comments which are just flattery of me, not being of general interest, are read by me but not posted to the blog.