Two new published studies from Statin Nation interviewees this week should push the cholesterol hypothesis a step back into the history books. Seventeen authors including: Uffe Ravnskov, Paul J Rosch, Sherif Sultan, Tomohito Hamazaki, Peter H Langsjoen, Kilmer S McCully, and Harumi Okuyama, published an article summarising the research showing that LDLs (so called ‘bad cholesterol’) do not cause heart disease. The paper highlights the following points:
The cholesterol hypothesis is based on misleading statistics and ignoring contradictory observations.
Only around 15% of clinical trials that found a negative result for cholesterol-lowering are cited in other reports.
There is no association between total cholesterol levels and the degree of arterial damage - in general, and also with regard to statin clinical trials.
In the Framingham Heart Study. “For each 1 mg/dl drop in TC [total cholesterol] per year, there was an eleven percent increase in coronary and total mortality”.
The LDL level of patients who have had a heart attack is lower than normal.
Elderly people with higher LDL live the longest.
Cardiovascular mortality has not decreased as a result of widespread statin treatment. Here is a quote from the paper that refers to this point:
“In a Swedish study including 289 of the 290 municipalities, no association was found between statin use and the change in mortality from acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Also, the American National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that during the period 1999-2006 the number of AMI and strokes increased from 3.4 to 3.7%, and from 2.0 to 2.9%, respectively. During the same period mean LDL-C level decreased from 126.1 to 114.8 mg/dL, and the self-reported use of lipid-lowering drugs increased from 8 to 13.4%. Furthermore, statin utilisation in 12 European countries between 2000 and 2012 was not associated with reduced CHD mortality or its rate of change over the years.”
In the second paper, Uffe Ravnskov writes about familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) - a genetic condition that prevents the body from removing cholesterol. People with FH have very high cholesterol levels. FH has often been used as a part of the explanation for the use of statins. However, there is not sufficient data to say that statins benefit people with FH. This is still unknown. However, for some time Uffe Ravnskov has argued that coagulation factors should be considered as a priority - which is the subject of the paper.
One of the videos from the Statin Nation Extras Package discusses this also:
Unfortunately, just this website and the Irish Times seem to have reported on the first study and only this website has reported on the second study. Therefore please share this post with everyone and anyone you can get to listen!
Update (18/09/18): The Sun, Express, and Metro newspapers have now reported on the first study, albeit with various factual errors.
SUPPORT THE FIGHT AGAINST STATINS AND CHOLESTEROL MISINFORMATION