As a primary care physician, I prescribe statins very
selectively, generally only in the case of secondary
prevention, i.e., after a cardiovascular event—and
sometimes not even then. I always partner with my patients
to come up with a global risk reduction plan (including
many of the recommendations in this book!), of which diet
and exercise are the cornerstones.
Another means by which statins can affect the brain,
both directly and indirectly, is by nearly doubling your risk
of developing type 2 diabetes. Published in 2015, a very
large, long-term study involving 3,982 statin users and
21,988 nonusers (all with the same risk factors for diabetes)
found that though all subjects began the study in normal
metabolic health, the statin group had twice the rate of
diabetes after ten years, and more ended up overweight.^23
Remember: having type 2 diabetes increases your risk for
Alzheimer’s disease two- to fourfold, along with any
number of other chronic diseases including heart disease.^24
At this point you may be wondering, if statins are so
widely prescribed, are they helping anybody aside from Big
Pharma’s bottom line? For patients who already have
cardiovascular disease, statins provide an anti-inflammatory
effect, independent of their effect on cholesterol. As I’ve
mentioned, inflammation is a major driver of not only
cardiovascular disease but diseases of the brain as well, and
for this reason, statins may confer some smidgen of benefit.
But why put yourself through all of the side effects I’ve just