From the Desk of Carolyn Dean MD ND
How much longer are we going to demonize cholesterol making it the evil kingpin in the battle against heart disease?
They Never Learn
I’ve related the following scenario countless times.
Jill is 60, and she goes to her doctor for her annual checkup, but she’s been under tremendous stress, which drains magnesium. The doctor finds her blood pressure is a little high but doesn’t know it’s from magnesium deficiency. It’s been a little high a few times in the past, so she is put on a diuretic drug. When she comes back for a follow-up, her pressure is higher. The doctor doesn’t know why, but it’s because the diuretic drives Jill’s magnesium even lower. Her doctor is happy, however, saying that he’s caught Jill’s blood pressure early and has to get more aggressive. The doctor puts Jill on two more antihypertensive drugs. One is a calcium channel blocker, but wait a minute, isn’t magnesium a natural calcium blocker?
Two months later, during blood tests to make sure the drugs aren’t harming the liver, and seemingly out of the blue, but because of lower levels of magnesium caused by all three drugs, Jill’s cholesterol levels are elevated, and so is her blood sugar. The doctor automatically puts Jill on a statin drug and a diabetic drug. Both those drugs drain the body of more magnesium. And so, the story goes, as more and more magnesium is lost, the symptoms of magnesium deficiency escalate into full blown heart disease and eventually heart failure.
If cholesterol becomes elevated because of magnesium deficiency, why aren’t doctors giving magnesium to help balance cholesterol? Sadly, they never learned about nutrients in medical school, and I never see nutrients as a topic in Continuing Medical Education Credit classes.
Keeping Up The Farce
Statins destroy the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme yet researchers bizarrely state that “HMGR is the target of statins that are prescribed to improve the quality of life of millions of people worldwide.”¹
Here’s what I wrote in The Magnesium Miracle (2017):
In medical school in the mid-1970s, normal cholesterol levels were around 245 mg/dL. In the first edition of The Magnesium Miracle, I reported allopathic medicine’s “normal” cholesterol value at 180–220 mg/dL. Now, doctors are advising that cholesterol should be below 200 mg/dL (5.2 mmol/L) to be considered normal. What doctors don’t seem to know is that magnesium, bound to ATP Mg(2+)-ATP, is the controlling factor for the rate-limiting enzyme in the cholesterol biosynthesis sequence that is targeted by the statin pharmaceutical drugs. Thus, magnesium is responsible for naturally slowing down HMG-CoA reductase activity when cholesterol is present in sufficient quantities. To repeat, this is the same enzyme that statin drugs target for destruction, creating magnesium deficiency.
In one of my favorite cholesterol books, The Great Cholesterol Con by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick lies the bedrock of science that disproves the cholesterol-heart disease misinformation. It’s a quote from the Framingham Study, the world’s longest-running, most respected heart-disease research. It began in 1948 and is still functioning today. Dr. Castelli said:
In Framingham, Massachusetts, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower one’s serum cholesterol. (Kendrick adds – by which he means LDL). Dr. William Castelli, the Director of the Framingham Study, 1992.
Castelli’s observation was ignored for a number of reasons.
- In the 80s, the Sugar Industry was diverting attention from their cash cow’s complicity in heart disease and blamed cholesterol.
- Statins were introduced in 1987 under the model of creating the disease and offering a cure.
- People are sheep and think science (even bad science) is real.
So, despite cholesterol not being the reason for heart disease, medicine kept up the farce, testing smaller and smaller particles of PROTEIN that transport lipids. News Flash! LDL is not even a lipid measurement. It’s a protein that transports a low-density lipid. So, the amount of this protein is supposed to give you an idea of how much lipid there is. I don’t know if this is a bad thing or a good thing but it’s an interesting lie that continues to be perpetuated.
As the statin studies continued pouring in, it became increasingly difficult to hide the results. The conclusions focused on the amount of cholesterol reduction, but in the fine print were the words that statins did not prolong life, which is why a patient would be taking these life-long drugs in the first place.
I was moved to write this blog (rant) because I came upon an article about apolipoprotein A1 (ApoA1), which apparently is is the key constituent of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and removes excess lipid from atherosclerotic plaques. But studies found that using a “ApoA1 product” did not bring about a significant reduction in the primary endpoint of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction (MI), or stroke in patients with MI and additional risk factors, in the AEGIS-II trial.
So, they didn’t find that their ApoA1 worked so instead of concluding that this lipid fraction has no effect, the lead researcher announced that “…he rejected the idea that the study meant the end of the HDL hypothesis.” So regardless of what “science” finds out about cholesterol, nobody’s going to believe it because they will die on the hill of “cholesterol is the cause of heart disease.” In fact, over the years there have been countless researchers demanding that statins are so miraculous that the water supply be spiked with them!
Apparently the “preventive cardiology community” wanted this “ApoA1 product” to increase HDL cholesterol and we’d all go home happy! They just won’t give up on cholesterol. They won’t tell their patients about a good lifestyle, diet, magnesium, vitamin D, Omega-3 fatty acids or any non-drug solutions. It’s actually quite criminal because the more drugs you take the more nutrients you deplete causing chronic disease and early death.
Knowledge Is Power
Since we will continue to be bombarded by doctors demanding that we take statins, please read The Great Cholesterol Con, so you can be armed with the real facts. You don’t necessarily have to debate your doctor; they are never going to change. But it will give you the intestinal fortitude to avoid being conned into taking a drug that you don’t really need and will actually make you feel worse. But be sure to follow my recommendations and protocols and stay healthy so that you don’t have to follow misinformed medical doctors.
To find out more about cholesterol what nutrients to take instead of statins, you can read my previous blog “Cholesterol, Friend Not Foe.”
Carolyn Dean MD ND
The Doctor of the Future
