The Risks of Cholesterol Drugs

Cholesterol is an essential molecule for the body, especially for the nervous system and spinal cord. In spite of the hype otherwise, too low cholesterol levels are associated with numerous health problems, including compromised mental health, infectious disease, and increased risk of dying.  

A recent Norwegian study indicated death rates were highest in individuals with the lowest cholesterol levels. In women specifically, as cholesterol levels increased to what had been previously deemed unhealthy, death rates declined. The investigators concluded “clinical and public-health recommendations regarding the dangers of cholesterol should be revised.”

Given such recommendations, many are reconsidering the prevalent practice of prescribing cholesterol-lowering drugs, especially when such drugs are associated with numerous adverse effects. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that many of these drugs now must be labeled with side-effect warnings.

Even if risks are relatively low, because the consumption of these drugs is so extensive, the cumulative societal health impact over time may be substantial.

Duane Graveline, MD, MPH, is a family doctor, USAF research scientist, and statin victim.

Statins

The most commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs are statins.

They work by blocking an enzyme involved in cholesterol synthesis. As an analogy, view this biosynthesis like a heavily trafficked, eight-lane highway leading to an NFL stadium being shut down to two lanes due to construction. Statins are the molecular equivalent of lane-narrowing traffic cones and speed bumps in the cholesterol-producing, biochemical pathway. As a result of these barriers, less cholesterol can get into the “game.”

Many scientists now believe any statin-induced reduction in cardiovascular-disease risk is not directly due to cholesterol lowering but related to other physiological factors, such as lessening inflammation. This appears to be the case for spinal-cord injury (SCI), where rat studies suggest the statin drug Lipitor limits the infusion of inflammatory molecules into the injury site, reducing damage.

Statins are hugely profitable. Lipitor is the world’s top-selling medicine, generating more than $13 billion in sales in 2010. Taking statins is not like taking antibiotics for a urinary tract infection (UTI) in which once the infection has been cured you can quit taking the drug.

With statins, nothing is fixed; you are expected to take them the rest of your life. As such, you are essentially providing drugmakers a lifetime financial annuity that you or society must pay. Given the massive numbers of people prescribed statins, one can only imagine the healthcare savings that would accrue if the underlying foundation for statin use was no longer valid.

Contact: laurancejohnston@msn.com. 

SIDEBAR

No Questions Asked

by Duane Graveline, MD, MPH

When we doctors first asked Merck pharmaceutical about the nature of the remarkable new statin drugs, we were told it inhibited a key enzyme in cholesterol synthesis.

For most of us, this was not much of an explanation, but we asked no further questions because we were so delighted to have such an effective drug.

In many cases the use of a statin resulted in as much as a 50% drop in cholesterol. All we knew was that biochemists found that this enzymatic step to cholesterol synthesis could quite easily be inhibited, and with results like this most of us were happy -— no questions asked.

Then we gradually learned the truth, that to inhibit cholesterol we must also inhibit Co-enyzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and dolichols, key substances vital for health.

The reduction of cholesterol leads to severe cognitive dysfunction in many statin users since cholesterol is vital to the formation and function of memory synapses in our brains.

The alteration in cell function resulting from the inevitable inhibition of CoQ10 and dolichol is giving us the rest of our broad list of incapacitating adverse effects — the rhabdomyolysis (breakdown of muscle fibers), permanent myopathy (dysfunction of muscle fibers), permanent neuropathy (damage to peripheral nerves) and ALS-like neuromuscular degeneration that has placed many hundreds in wheelchairs — yours truly included. 

And now we are told cholesterol reduction has nothing to do with statin benefit! The positive effect on some cases of cardiovascular disease has to do with an anti-coagulant function that only recently has been identified and for which the cholesterol lowering doses of the past are completely irrational.

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