LIPITOR, you can understand the incentive that the pharmaceutical industry has to push their products
and make them a mass commodity.
What Statins May Do To You!
Statins are drugs that inhibit the production of cholesterol. Now, most people would think that this is a
good thing. The statins manage to lower cholesterol by inhibiting the body's production of mevalonate,
which is a precursor of cholesterol. When the body makes less mevalonate, less cholesterol is produced by
the cells and thus blood cholesterol goes down as well. This sounds good to most people. But mevalonate
is a precursor of other substances also, substances with many important biologic functions that you
definitely don't want to disrupt (see side effects below).
Through the mass media and doctor's advice, people are being told that the most important objective is
to get rid of the excessive cholesterol so that it doesn't clog up arteries and cause a heart attack. However,
this rather simplistic train of thought got us into trouble in the first place. Contrary to what we know about
the true value of cholesterol, we are made to believe this essential substance to be a dangerous nuisance
that only makes our lives miserable.
The fact is that each cell in your body requires cholesterol to make it waterproof and prevent its
membrane from becoming leaky or porous. Although this is a very important role of cholesterol, the
following one is absolutely essential for preventing a heart attack.
If your diet contains a lot of acidic compounds, such as meat protein, sugar and trans fats, your cell
membranes become easily damaged and require repair. To fulfill the repair request by the cells, the body
releases a flood of corticoid hormones that cause extra amounts of cholesterol to be taken to them. As you
can see, one of cholesterol's many roles is to repair tissue damage. Scar tissue is known to contain high
levels of cholesterol, including scar tissue in the arteries. In other words, whenever an artery becomes
injured due to acid attacks and buildup of proteins in their walls, you can expect cholesterol to be there to
help repair the damage. The increased demand for more cholesterol is naturally met by the liver, which
can raise production by 400 percent if necessary. That this emergency response leads to elevated
cholesterol levels in the blood is not only common sense but desirable. Obviously, this may change any
negative preconceived notions that you may have had about the role of cholesterol in your body.
Cholesterol is not your worst enemy, but your best friend.
Apart from cholesterol protecting your health, there are many more reasons why we need to avoid
meddling with the finely-tuned cholesterol-producing mechanism in the body (explained in following
sections). A real problem arises when we lower cholesterol by bypassing or disturbing this life-essential
mechanism. The cholesterol-lowering statin drugs do just that. If your body has reasons to increase
cholesterol levels in your blood, it is for your protection only. Artificially lowering blood cholesterol with
synthetic drugs removes that protection and can generate an entire host of health problems, starting with
disrupting the production of adrenal hormones. This, in turn, can lead to:
- Blood sugar problems
- Edema
- Mineral deficiencies
- Chronic inflammation
- Difficulty in healing
- Allergies
- Asthma
- Reduced libido