High Cholesterol – An “Invented” Disease?
Is it possible that “high cholesterol” (hypercholesterolemia) is an invented disease?
Why is it that for the past 25 to 30 years, more and more people are being tested and diagnosed and treated for this ‘problem’ – including young adults and even children? And who are “they” that should be held accountable for this imaginary predicament – if that’s what it is?
This “new” disease exhibits no outward telltale symptoms. In order to detect it you have to see a doctor who will require a blood test. And if the blood cholesterol numbers are interpreted as being ‘too high’, you can expect to be put on a fat restricted unbalanced diet and an expensive drug. Then you will be required to have regular checkups by a health professional and frequent follow up blood tests.
Once you get caught up in this ‘cholesterol management’ ploy there seems to be no escape.
The dosage of medication gets adjusted periodically, or you get to experiment with drugs of the same category but with other names; and you are faced with the quandary of adverse reactions (side effects) and the interactions of other medications.
This is all compounded if you’ve already had a heart attack. Even if your cholesterol is ‘low’, you automatically get to take cholesterol-lowering medicine; and you’ll be frightened into following a tasteless and unsatisfying diet.
Ever since it was learned how to measure cholesterol levels in the blood (30 years ago), we’ve been told that more and more people are suffering from hypercholesterolemia and have increased risk for heart disease. Is that really the case?
Consider this: The original parameters that were established were cholesterol levels over 240 in middle-aged men with other risk factors (such as smoking and overweight). Eight or nine years later the cholesterol number was changed to 200, and it included anyone (male or female). Then more recently the ‘dreaded’ diagnosis and a prescription for treatment are being suggested for a cholesterol measurement that has been arbitrarily moved down to 180, and it applies to young adults and even children (both male and female).
This is the epitome of absurdity. Where is it going to end? If ‘high’ cholesterol is truly a risk for heart and blood vessel disease, and if the numbers are capriciously dropped any further, everyone becomes a candidate for drug treatment. Should we routinely medicate everyone six years old and above to ostensibly prevent heart attacks in later years?
And is there substantiated and corroborated proof that ‘high’ cholesterol is the cause of heart attacks and increased mortality? Great effort has been made to convince everyone with ‘elevated’ cholesterol that they are sick and need a doctor. The campaign is lead by the medical/pharmaceutical establishments and joined in by the U.S. government and the media.
Meanwhile, other factors that are known to cause and/or contribute to coronary-vascular disease are largely ignored. Two of the main things that can lead to abnormal plaque formation and plaque instability in and around the heart and blood vessels are damage to the structures by ‘free radical’ molecules and inflammation.
Just because cholesterol is one of the substances found within the plaque doesn’t mean it is the primary culprit – or that it’s even a directly associated cause.
Why is so much attention focused on cholesterol and the cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins and not to other risk factors?
Could it be that there’s less money to be made when individuals take responsibility for improving their nutrition, losing pounds and inches, exercising, stopping smoking, resolving stress, etc.?
Then there’s the recent media hype about a study done in 2004 that purportedly concluded that using higher doses of drugs to achieve ‘ultra-low’ LDL cholesterol levels produced “significant benefits” of lowered risk of heart disease and a reduction in mortality.
A close scrutiny of this 2004 study demonstrates it was seriously flawed.
A carefully constructed study two years earlier (J-LIT, 2002 study) that had ten times as many patients and lasted almost three times as long contradicts the later study. It found no correlation whatsoever between the amount of LDL lowering and death rates.
In the midst of all this conflicting information, where can you find the particulars about the effects of blood cholesterol being too low? And is it only coincidental that those effects are the same as the adverse reactions to cholesterol lowering drugs? Here’s a partial list: elevated liver enzymes (an indication of abnormal liver function); muscle pain and weakness (called rhabdomyolysis); polyneuropathy (peripheral neuropathy – tingling and pain in the hands and feet and difficulty walking); congestive heart failure (possibly due to the statins interfering with the production of Co-Q10 – a cellular enzyme crucial to the heart and other muscles); dizziness; cognitive impairment; depression and anxiety.
The word ‘indignation’ best describes the way growing numbers of people are feeling about being victimized by all the cholesterol mythology. It’s past time for consumers to put a stop to the profiteering and take back control of their own health and well being.
Oh by the way – one of the symptoms of ample cholesterol is feeling good and being healthy!