Question -- What's your view on cholesterol-lowering drugs?
However I personally have tried most of these drugs over the years because of recommendations by my doctor, but the side effects led me to abandon them altogether.
So I personally do not take any medications, even though my cholesterol level is 10 mmol/L, so that gives you some idea of my opinion on cholesterol-lowering drugs.
I believe you need to 'weigh up' the small benefit that these drugs provide against the fact that - in a certain percentage of population -- the result is poorer health and a reduced 'quality of life'.
Statins and Cholesterol
The concern with statins, is the long-list of side effects which have been uncovered, and people who take statins deserve to know what they are.
One case example was a lady that I spoke to in California (I was introduced to her by a medical doctor) whose husband had taken one of the more popular statins for 3 years commencing at age 51, and as a consequence he lost his ability to remember things.
The disaster that happened to him was that the statins damaged his part of the brain that stores short-term information; what you might call scratchpad memory.
Today Robert cannot work at all because he cannot remember anything. If Robert had known of the potential side effects at the start, he could have weighed up the risks. But he was never told about the risks, and so the medical advice he received has turned his family's life into a living nightmare.
What are the Alternative Treatments for high cholesterol?
- Make a number of dietary and lifestyle improvements, particularly the right choice of foods and adequate exercise.
- Consider herbal medicines derived from plants, which are designed to tone and help improve liver function (the liver makes most of your cholesterol) and which helps to flush excess cholesterol out of the body and ensure its not re-absorbed within the intestines.
- Herbal medicines is that they have a very low indication for side effects.
- Finally, there are those who take pharmaceutical statin drugs like Zocor, Lipitor, Crestor etc which are powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs, but also have the risks of unwanted side effects. One thing to remember, and this is really important to understand, is the fact that many people with high cholesterol have clean arteries without plaque build-up, meaning their arteries are squeaky clean. That’s why it’s essential to find out whether your arteries are in good condition by using one of the newer heart scanning technologies.
- EDTA chelation therapy is a medical option in some parts of the USA and Australia(see below)
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