Cholesterol Drugs: The Facts

Contents: The Two Sides in the Cholesterol Drug debate -- Cholesterol drugs can have dangerous side effects -- Are cholesterol drugs a giant pharmaceutical scam? -- The inflammation hypothesis of cardiovascular disease and cholesterol -- Triglycerides need to be lowered as well -- Cholesterol lowering drugs in Summary -- Some warnings and side effects of cholesterol drugs you may not hear about -- Cholesterol Drugs in Conclusion.

The Two Sides in the Cholesterol Drug debate

Cholesterol drugs are probably one of the hottest topics around. 

On one side of the cholesterol drug fence we have one group - primarily doctors and drug companies - that state categorically that cholesterol drugs are life saving and beneficial. 

On the other side we have anyone from a journalist to a herbal medicine dealer espousing the view that cholesterol drugs are not only useless, but that cholesterol drugs are quite dangerous with their side effects

Cholesterol drugs can have dangerous side effects

Certainly, there are few who would disagree about how dangerous some of those cholesterol drug side effects can be. 

The side effects of the cholesterol drugs include such debilitating effects as complete loss of energy, where just sitting up in bed by oneself is a major accomplishment. 

There are true stories of people who have lost their jobs because of a cholesterol drug's side effect.

However, the debate is not over the side effects of these cholesterol drugs, as the side effects are normally stated in tiny writing on a piece of paper included in the packaging.  So the cholesterol drug companies aren't apparently hiding this information.

Are cholesterol drugs a giant scam?

The debate is reeally over whether cholesterol drugs do anything beneficial for the sufferer of high cholesterol.

An extremely important consideration, as the doctors and drug companies make money out of having you on cholesterol drugs, while you or your insurance company foot the bill.

Some people have even gone so far to say that the whole cholesterol drugs scene is one giant scam and that there is no such thing as a cholesterol induced stroke.  If you read our introductory cholesterol information on what cholesterol is and does, you will find this basis for rejecting cholesterol drugs to be incorrect.

To quote S. M. Grundy, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, circa 2008:  "That's the most established fact in all of medicine ...  The more you lower LDL cholesterol, the more you lower the risk." 

I have to wonder if the people pushing this cholesterol drug scam idea are the ones doing the scamming.

Anyway, to pursue the idea of a giant cholesterol drug scam:

Given that millions and millions of people - about around 12 to 14 million to be precise - in the United States alone are on statin cholesterol drugs - statin cholesterol drugs being a derivative from red yeast rice mould initially - the need to verify which group is right about the life saving effects of cholesterol drugs has become paramount.

The hypothesis that high cholesterol is not responsible for LDL depositing on the blood vessel walls has been found to be both right and wrong. 

The inflammation hypothesis of cardiovascular disease and cholesterol:

You may even here about the inflammation hypothesis, which states that the blood vessel walls collect cholesterol when they are inflamed through infection, but this is not yet confirmed one way or the other.  If you read my other cholesterol information on LDL cholesterol, you will see that this hypothesis appears flimsy.

There are studies that do show that lowering the LDL cholesterol through cholesterol drugs, does not necessarily result all the time in stopping cholesterol build up on blood vessel walls - a lowering of heart attack and cardiovascular risk - but overall, for many people it appears to do so, particularly if the cholesterol drugs are complemented by a low cholesterol diet.

Triglycerides need to be lowered as well:

From another recent study by Dr. Miller, we also know that to reduce cardiovascular risk even further, that triglycerides need to be lowered to a low level as well, in addition to lowering the LDL through cholesterol drugs.

Also, there is a mountain of research that verifies that the higher the cholesterol in your blood stream, the more likely will be cardiovascular disease through cholesterol build up on artery walls etc.  That's why we measure cholesterol levels.

Cholesterol lowering drugs in Summary

This may all seem very confusing, but what the research appears to be pointing to, is that cholesterol drugs can help lower LDL cholesterol.  That lowering the LDL cholesterol through the use of cholesterol drugs and diet can lead to lower cardiovascular incidents such as stroke and heart attack, but not always.

So, it would seem that cholesterol drugs do have a place in fighting cardiovascular disease and stroke.

Cholesterol Drugs - some warnings and side effects you may not hear about

When researchers deliberately increased HDL cholesterol - the good cholesterol - to unnaturally high levels in people, they also found that would kill people as well.

On a down side, drop your cholesterol levels to far, such as with cholesterol drugs, and you risk stomach cancers, amongst other things.  Dr. Kouichi Asano et al, of Kyushu University, Fukuoka, circa 2006 in the International Journal of Cancer found that if your cholesterol levels were low you were nearly twice as likely to develop stomach cancer.

Finally, not all people with high cholesterol develop cardiovascular disease, but as we can't yet tell who needs cholesterol drugs and who doesn't, it means we all have to try and keep our cholesterol under control, and cholesterol drugs can be very, very good at doing just that.

Like any powerful medication, cholesterol drugs need to prescribed and MONITORED by your doctor. Your doctor needs to adjust the dose to the minimum possible - to help reduce the chances of dangerous side effects developing.

Even then, your body must be monitored closely for the rest of your life, as the cholesterol drugs are so powerful that they can cause some of your internal organs to fail and kill you. A real nasty side effect of statin cholesterol drugs that must be watched for through blood test, is whether it is causing your muscles to waste away. These side effects of cholesterol drugs are rare, but if it happens to you, believe me, you'll probably wish you had another life.

The non-statin cholesterol drugs that work by blocking fat absorption, also block your body from getting the fat soluable vitamins out of the fat, putting you at real risk of some vitamin deficiencies that can also be quite debilitating in their own right.

Cholesterol Drugs in Conclusion

On a more positive note, cholesterol drugs, although not completely safe, are much safer than cholesterol drugs of just a few years ago.

Provided you have a doctor who monitors and adjusts the dosage of the cholesterol drug as needed, the risk of adverse side effects is expected to be reduced, and your life span usefully extended.

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