Dear Reader,
A new study has just found a brain robber that over 10 million people in the USA are exposed to every day. If you’re one of them I think you should stop
Today, I’ll tell you about some of the newfound dangers of these unsafe drugs, and give you healthy alternatives for your mind and body.
Statin cholesterol-lowering drugs are Big Pharma’s biggest windfall for past several years running. Twelve million Americans are now taking Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Mevacor and other statin drugs at the constant urging and heavy pressure of a misinformed mainstream medical establishment.
But I find that if I track the big bucks in medicine, I often find secrets, distortions or even outright deceit that the people making the money would prefer that you didn’t know.
Case in point – An important study out of UC San Diego has gathered conclusive evidence of statins’ profoundly destructive impact on the brain. It turns out they can provoke symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s.1
In fact, some of the San Diego study’s subjects reported memory loss to the point where they couldn’t recognize people they’d known for decades. Others found that statins had stripped them of their ability to concentrate, work, think clearly or even talk.
In most cases, their mental powers returned once they went off the drugs. But for some, the damage was lasting.
The fact is, after muscle pain and weakness, cognitive problems are the most common side effect of statin drugs. But most people don’t know this. I’ve never heard of a single case of a doctor warning a patient of this potential when they discuss the decision to begin the drug.
From a medical point of view, it’s not at all surprising that they cause brain disorders. Cholesterol is crucial to brain function. It protects nerve cells and literally speeds up your brain’s operation in all areas, including your thought processes, recall, and speech. It’s also the building block for synapses, the areas between nerve cells that transmit messages.
Statins sap your body of an important building block with cholesterol. For some folks, the loss is so great that their bodies – and minds – begin to break down.
Still skeptical? An ongoing heart study in Framingham, Massachusetts demonstrated definitively that older folks with low cholesterol levels actually have lower brain function than those with higher levels.2
Older people with low total cholesterol (under 200) were much more likely to perform poorly on tests of mental function than those with high cholesterol (over 240).
For many years now, we’ve known that very low cholesterol levels are linked to increased risk of suicide and violent behavior. New research has even found a link between low cholesterol levels and increased risk of death from cancer.3 Not to mention muscle weakness, fatigue, and low sex drive. . .
Now we’re learning that low cholesterol has a brain-draining, stupefying effect as well.
Bottom line: far from being the Enemy that modern medicine claims, cholesterol is really an essential nutrient. Modern medicine’s obsession with it is misguided.
As I tell my patients almost every day, don’t try to lower cholesterol; it’s your HDL or “good” cholesterol level that you should focus on.
As long as your HDL count’s high – say, around 75 to 80 – you are not at any higher risk of heart disease if your cholesterol is 350.
So how can you boost your HDL? One, exercise and two eat naturally occurring fats.
Get your fat from free-range or grass-fed animals, eggs, nuts, and unprocessed vegetable oils. These are some of the healthiest foods you can eat. (As with all foods, look for organic or minimally processed options whenever possible.)
Omega-3 supplements come in the form of gel caps but I like oily small fish and cod liver oil better.
You really don’t need to take these dangerous drugs.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
1 Golomb BA. “Impact of statin adverse events in the elderly.” Expert Opinion on Drug Safety. 2005;4(3):389–397.
2 Elias PK et al. “Serum cholesterol and cognitive performance in the Framingham Heart Study,” Psychosomatic Medicine. 2005;67(1):24–30.
3 Alawi A, et al. Effect of the Magnitude of Lipid Lowering on Cancer. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 50(2007):409-418.