The Statin Damage Crisis

Book excerpt: In this newly updated and re-edited 2012 edition, the side effects of cholesterol lowering statins are thoroughly assessed. Also reviewed are dietary and supplement choices that may offer benefit in the prevention of heart disease and in combating and preventing statin damage. The cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins are of proven benefit for some groups of people for the prevention of heart attacks and stroke, but statins also have a dark side. Tens of thousands of people have been victims of a huge array of statin drugs side effects, ranging from permanent cognitive dysfunction and severe personality change to disabilities from permanent peripheral neuropathy, permanent myopathy and chronic muscular degeneration. It has recently been reported that muscle pain cases frequently become permanent and many neurologists now regard statin neuropathy as predictably resistant to traditional treatment. When statins were first marketed there was seemingly no awareness of possible mitochondrial DNA effect or the importance of glial cell cholesterol to cognitive function and little or no concern that to inhibit cholesterol means to interrupt its pathway shared by both CoQ10 and dolichols and many other vital substances. Nor was it known that statins are powerful anti-inflammatory agents, the fundamental reason for their benefit in cardiovascular risk. The outmoded concept of looking at cholesterol numbers as a predictor of cardiovascular risk is increasingly being dismissed as studies point to cholesterol levels as being seemingly irrelevant to the process of atherosclerosis. In addition to the crisis of thousands of people disabled by statin associated neuro-muscular problems is the fact that many physicians still remain unaware that statins can even do this. Then there is the crisis of the growing trend of the insurance industry to use cholesterol levels as a reason to deny health care coverage or life insurance coverage. Some employers even require cholesterol levels to be below a certain number as a condition of employment. Plus the crisis of patients being forced into taking a statin because not to do so would result in having to find a new doctor. The Statin Damage Crisis looks at how statins work, the importance of cholesterol in the body, inflammation and atherosclerosis, anti-inflammatory alternatives to statins, serious side effects of statins, and dietary supplements of possible benefit to those taking statins or that were forced to stop taking a statin due to unpleasant and even disabling side effects.