1117 High Cholesterol

78 million people are eligible for daily cholesterol-lowering medication and half are taking it. Depending on when & where you went to Medical school, this is a good or bad thing. From being the savior of heart disease in the 70s & 80s, the cholesterol schtick has been exposed this century but like so much quack medicine, it continues on. Here are the facts: • For elderly men and for women of all ages, high cholesterol is associated with a longer lifespan. • As Americans have cut back on saturated fat and cholesterol-rich foods, rates of heart disease have gone up. • In the two most recent trials, involving over 10,000 subjects, cholesterol-lowering did not result in any improvement in outcome. Yet on the flip side, numerous studies have linked low cholesterol with depression, and rates of heart failure have doubled since the advent of cholesterol-reducing statin drugs. Worse, almost a third of statin users experience weakness, muscle wasting, polyneuropathy, cognitive impairment & cancer. Americans are right to mistrust pharmaceutical-driven medicine.