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Letter to the Editor: Healthy Living Beats Statin Drugs. 8.9.18

Dear Editor:

Last week Dr. Jerome Fleg wrote in Letter to the Editor refuting some of the information in the column:  Secrets to Healthy Living in the Ozarks – How to Avoid a Heart Attack/Stint.  Medical doctors look at illnesses and treat symptoms with prescription drugs.  Doctors like Dr. Bob Hollett look for the underlying causes of illnesses and correct those causes with natural means.

Dr. Fleg says there are studies to confirm that cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart attack and stroke, but he neglected to say that there are also many studies that confirm that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart attack and stroke and actually increases the chances of stroke along with memory loss, liver damage, muscle aches, numbness, and swelling.  One study was the AIM-HIGH study (Atherothrombosis Intervention in Metabolic Syndrome with Low HDL/High Triglycerides:  Impact on Global Health Outcomes).  The study was abruptly halted because the results were so dismal—no fewer heart attacks and slightly more strokes occurred.  This advice is not the fault of your cardiologist.  He or she have been trained that there is only one way to treat illnesses.  

This is an excerpt from Dr. Bruce West, Health Alert:

If you have higher levels of high-density lipoprotein (also known as HDL or good cholesterol), you have a lower risk of having a heart attack.  Population studies have proved this.  But raising HDL levels with drugs is useless in preventing heart attacks.  And the reason is simple.  Normally, higher HDL levels are indicative of better nutrition, better exercise habits, and healthier liver function –all factors that help prevent heart attacks.  But higher HDL levels raised by a statin drug are not indicative of any of these.  Instead they are just artificially raised levels.

I have maintained that manipulating cholesterol numbers (lowering total cholesterol and rising HDL cholesterol) is the cure only for cholesterolphobia—the unwarranted fear of cholesterol.  Although manipulating these numbers artificially with statin drugs does reward the drugmakers, and does get you a pat on the back from your physician, it does not prevent heart attacks.  The statin drug, dalcetrapib, lowered total cholesterol and raised HDL levels in patients with heart disease, but was scrapped because of a “lack of clinically meaningful efficacy” in patients.  In other words, it did no good.  Just look on the label of a Lipitor bottle.  The fine print reads, LIPITOR has not been shown to prevent heart disease or heart attacks.

You can languish on drugs or actually apply proper nutrition and a whole-foods diet to nourish your heart and actually reverse your disease.

So, it comes down to changing your life style.  Eat whole foods (Mediterranean diet), drink pure water, use Celtic Sea Salt, take an Omega-3 oil, exercise by walking daily, quite smoking, and quit or limit alcohol use.

Each person has a choice to make about their health, so be informed.  

Peggy Charchol