The cholesterol story continues to unfold and as it does it is becoming clearer that the medical community has somehow swallowed a pill the size of a basketball without even knowing it! Almost every medical doctor in the United States, and the civilized world for that matter, tells their patients that a total cholesterol level above 200 mg/dL needs to be treated in order to lower their risk of experiencing a heart attack or stroke. And, their treatment of choice is the statin drug. (Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor, Vytorin (more on this later), etc.) If you challenge them on the use of the statin, they are incredulous as to how anyone could even question the effectiveness of this class of proven drug. In their minds the evidence is so profound that they even get angry at suggestions to the contrary.

So, if almost all doctors are completely convinced, how in the world could they ALL be wrong? I understand that most people will not be able to accept this premise. Doctors are among the most intelligent in our society. Heck, I have good friends and patients who know me very well who cannot bring themselves to accept that I could be right and that their doctor could be wrong on this issue. I realize that the faith we have in our medical doctors’ level of competency has been built and reinforced over a life-time. It is thus almost impossible for most to believe that the medical community could be collectively wrong on any issue

The interesting thing is that I heard this exact same logic used when it came to the mindless prescribing of the horse estrogen, Premarin, just a few short years ago. Doctors were collectively convinced of the benefits and safety of prescription estrogens. I counseled many patients who had been given a prescription for Premarin just because they had the “disease” menopause. They had NO symptoms! Detractors from this “known truth” were considered as having been conspiracy embracing quacks. This was the collective truth until, of course, the medical community was forced to look at the whole of the damning evidence. They refused to look at this evidence for over a decade! The exact same scenario is playing out with statin drugs.

If you did not get a chance to read my article, The Statin Drug Lie, I encourage you to do so now. Just click on the title.

Please know that I am not asking you to blindly make my opinion yours. If you have been prescribed a statin drug and you have never experienced a heart attack, if you are a women, or if you are over 70 years of age, ask your doctor to supply you with one study that shows a significant benefit of using a statin drug for primary prevention. In other words, ask them to show you a study that gives good evidence that a statin drug helps prevent heart attacks and strokes in patients who have not already had a heart attack. I am talking about evidence that makes taking a drug with over 120 listed side-effects worth while. I am telling you that they cannot provide you with this study. It does not exist!

Here are my predictions. Your doctor will do one of three things. First, they may tell you to trust them because statin drugs are among the most studied. If so, they should be able to give you a primary intervention study without even blinking an eye. They should be able to easily back up that statement. Second, they may promise to send one to you, but you will either never get it or you will get one that is not a primary intervention study. My guess is that you will get the intentionally misleading 40% reduction study I wrote about in The Statin Drug Lie. If you follow-up after they do not send you a study or if they send an unrelated study, you will either be told to trust them or you will get number three. Number three is that they will get upset with your lack of faith in their judgment. I have had doctors even tell their patients that if they do not trust them then they need to find another doctor. I say Amen to that! When did ego replaced servitude in medicine? I ask you to consider one thing. If they are absolutely convinced that statin drugs are so effective, why can they not provide you with even one study showing a significant benefit of using this drug?

If you have been given a prescription for a statin drug, you owe it to your own health to investigate this subject. Take the time to challenge your doctor. You are going to find out that maybe that “nut-ball” Dr. Zimmer is not all that nutty after all. Maybe it takes someone who is outside of the collective to be able to evaluate the situation in a more unbiased manner. I know…I know, but I am biased against drugs, right? Wrong! I am critical of the mindless prescribing of drugs, not drugs. If you think I am off base please email me any statement I have made in my writings that has not been backed by solid evidence or logic. Send me a statement showing frank bias against drugs and I will publish it in next month’s Health Zinger.

The hardest part for most in accepting that their doctor could be so far off base is the element of fear. It is what the pharmaceutical industry and the vast medical community uses to get you to take their drugs. If you don’t take this you might get (insert a disease). So, there is a fear that if you do not take a statin or if you stop taking it you may experience a heart attack or stroke. The question I get all of the time is, “What if I stop or do not take this drug and then get a heart attack?” The premise for this question is the underlying belief that statin drugs can have a significant protective effect upon whether or not you experience a cardiovascular event. Simple logic tells you that they do not. The occurrence of cardiovascular events continues to increase. How can that be if millions of Americans take statin drugs? But, as I have pointed out in The Statin Drug Lie there is NO evidence that statin drugs give any meaningful protection for primary prevention, to women or to anyone over 70 years old. Period! End of story.

Realize that your doctor will become visibly agitated if you challenge them on the use of statin drugs. To be this convinced about something they should easily be able to provide anyone with lots of evidence to back up their conviction. I am telling you that they cannot come up with ANY credible evidence that statin drugs provide even a mild benefit for primary prevention (meaning for those who have not had a heart attack/stroke yet), for women or for anyone over 70 years old. And, for those with multiple risk factors and who have had a heart attack the study proven benefits are minimal.

So, how in the world have they become so convinced and convicted of the benefits of this class of drug? The answer is if all you hear is positive, positive, positive, positive…you eventually become positive towards whatever it is. The only way to not fall prey to this tactic is to independently check the information you receive. Doctors NEVER check out the specifics of any study. They simply do not have the time. That is how they swallowed the manipulation of numbers making a 1 out of 100 benefit into a claim of a 40% reduction in heart attacks over placebo as has been presented to them by their friendly neighborhood pharmaceutical representative. No, the truth was that the study revealed a 1% benefit for a drug with a side-effect occurrence of 15%. Even a monkey can figure out that it is not a good thing if one person benefits, but 15 are harmed. Especially when some of those 15 were seriously harmed and even more will be harmed many years later.

The other big obstacle in deciding to stop taking a statin drug is that most do not “feel” any negative side-effects from taking the drug. If every time you took a statin you got muscle aching, it would be easy to stop. A good example of how quietly dangerous statin drugs are can be shown by looking at the reduction of the energy producing, extremely powerful antioxidant CoQ10. All statins reduce CoQ10 levels. Reductions in this molecule have been shown to increase the risk of death from heart attack and logically increase the future occurrence of multiple neurological disorders like Parkinson’s Disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s. Describe to me again how you feel when your CoQ10 levels are only slightly reduced? Oh, that is right…you feel nothing! But, is harm being done? You bet. So, if chances are good that you are being quietly hurt by taking statins, does it not make sense to at least challenge your doctor to show you how they are benefiting you? You are going to be shocked at their inability to do so and it will hopefully open you eyes to the truth.

As I say time and time again, do not forget that YOU are in control of your health care decisions. Your doctor is a counselor whose job is to give you direction and explanation. When they give you direction without a proper or valid explanation, you can decide not to follow their advice. My opinion is that statin drugs are hurting way more people than they are helping. You are most likely one of those being hurt. For all of my patients and friends taking a statin drug, know that I do not care if you continue to take this worthless and harmful drug. It is your body; not mine. I take no personal offense if you do not accept what I have outlined in this article. I only care that you have now been exposed to the whole story.