If you’re over 50, the chances are you’ve been persuaded – or possibly even brow beaten – into taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.
I’ve been warning my patients and readers about Big Pharma’s $23 billion-a-year statin scam for years.1
Now a new study confirms once and for all that the cholesterol-heart disease myth behind these drugs is flat out wrong. According to a massive review, just published in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, lowering your so-called “bad” LDL cholesterol will NOT reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke.2
Despite what you may have been told by your cardiologist, there is no such thing as “good” or “bad” cholesterol. You need both types to keep your body healthy. Taking statins is not only a colossal waste of money, it’s also dangerous.
The true culprit behind heart disease is inflammation – largely caused by our modern dietary imbalance in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids and omega-3s, their anti-inflammatory cousins.
Just like the statins scam, this imbalance is driven by the same false idea – pushed for 70 years by the American Heart Association (AHA) – that animal fats raise cholesterol and lead to heart disease.
This has been the biggest dietary disaster of the 20th and 21st centuries. And it’s no surprise that heart disease has remained the #1 diagnosed disease in America and the #1 cause of death.
You see, for most of the time humans have been on Earth, we ate foods that had omega-6s and omega-3s in the ratio of about 2:1 – or sometimes even 1:1.
But in our modern world, thanks to the bad advice of the AHA, the animal fats of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations have been replaced with cheap grains and vegetable oils. And now our omega-6/omega-3 ratio has been skewed to as much as 20:1.
That means the average American now eats 10 times too many omega-6 fatty acids.
Sure, this has lowered LDL cholesterol levels. But research now confirms that the more LDL is lowered, the greater the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
The recent Minnesota Coronary Experiment found that replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil increased mortality and cardiovascular events, even as total cholesterol was lowered by 13.8%.3
The researchers also discovered that for each 30 mg/dL reduction in serum cholesterol, the death risk surged by 22%.
I work with my patients to get them off statins. And I help them to rebalance their omega-6/omega-3 ratio by reducing or eliminating the use of corn oil, canola oil, soy oil and margarine. Instead, you should cook with high-quality extra virgin olive oil, coconut or avocado oil, or full fat organic butter from grass-fed cows.
Processed and prepackaged foods almost always contain one of the omega-6 vegetable oils, so avoid them as much as possible. Great sources of omega-3s are grass-fed red meat; wild, cold-water fish like salmon, pollock, tuna, lake trout and herring; and avocado, walnuts, olives, and olive oil.
I also recommend omega-3 supplements – especially docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which studies prove is a potent defender from heart disease.4
DHA eliminates the need for statins. It’s also one of the best ways to treat poor circulation and stabilize blood pressure.
Get at least 500 mg of DHA, as well as 60 mg of the EPA form of omega-3, in a combination of squid and krill oil. And make sure you take it with meals so it can be digested properly.
I also recommend supplementing with vitamin K2, another powerful anti-inflammatory heart defender. Vitamin K2 comes in several different forms called menaquinones. Look for menaquinone-7, which is one of the most bioactive.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD, CNS
1. Hyperlipidemia Drugs Market Worth $22.6 Billion by 2022. Grand View Research, Available at: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-hyperlipidemia-drugs-market
2. DuBroff, R, et al. “Hit or miss: the new cholesterol targets.” BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. August 2020.
3. Ramsden CE, et al. “Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis: analysis of recovered data from Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968-73).” BMJ. 2016-04-12 22:34:54.
4. Bernstein A, et al ” A Meta-Analysis Shows at Docosahexaenoic Acid … Increases HDL-Cholesterol … in Persons without Coronary Heart Disease.” J Nutr. 2012;142(1):99-104.