Cholesterol & The French Paradox

By Frank Cooper

Summarized with permission of Monahan Publishing.
All rights reserved.

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Alternatives to Statin Drugs

It's important to understand that only about 5 percent of the people who take statins actually receive benefits; the remaining 95 percent will only receive the costs and the risks. If you aren't interested in experiencing any of the 30-plus side effects possible with statins, what can you do? A number of alternatives are available.

• Plant sterols: Plants contain a substance that is similar to cholesterol. By eating fruits and vegetables or taking a pure sterol supplement, the plant sterols compete with cholesterol for absorption in the digestive tract so less cholesterol is absorbed.
• Red yeast rice: This fermented rice product has been used in China for centuries to promote blood circulation. It contains the same chemical compound as the statin Mevacor and should be treated as a pharmaceutical. If taken, be sure to watch dosage levels and take Coenzyme Q10 along with it.
• Policosanol: This patented substance is a wax alcohol derived from sugar cane. It has no known toxicity level and does not react to other drugs. Studies have found that it reduces the stickiness of platelets and inflammation in the arteries.

Women and Cholesterol

Women's bodies work differently than men's but often studies do not take these differences into account. One doctor who did, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, found that women with higher cholesterol levels actually lived longer than those with lower cholesterol. A Newsday article dated July 6, 2004 states: "The risk for total mortality was not lower in women treated with lipid-lowering drugs (statins) regardless of whether they had prior cardiovascular disease or not." Heart disease is not a major threat to women under the age of 75, but cancer is.

Statins should not be taken by young women because of the threat to their babies. Studies have shown that statins cause severe nervous system defects during the first trimester of pregnancy (New England Journal of Medicine, April 8, 2004). Fetuses need adequate levels of cholesterol to develop normally. A Canadian review of studies about women and statin use, funded by a community group, "found a pattern of overestimation of benefit and underestimation of harm” (www.whp-apsf.ca/pdf/statinsEvidenceCaution.pdf).

One of the major difficulties in finding credible research is that almost all of the studies are somehow related to drug companies. Even university research is typically funded by donations from these corporations. Governments and disease-related groups also typically have pharmaceutical connections.

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