[ncmncm]

Robert Lustig is right that fructose (half of common sugar) is responsible for a variety of ills: exactly the ones Americans die of, by the millions. There is a lot of Lustig material on youtube, all of it excellent, all thoroughly grounded in rigorous experimental science. We need more Robert Lustigs.

The normal metabolic route is that excess fructose, beyond what the liver can afford to process immediately or store itself, is carried wrapped in cholesterol to fat cells to be stored.

If you take statins, excess fructose gets dumped into your bloodstream not wrapped in cholesterol, which is much worse. It causes oxidation of blood lipids, which have long been known to cause heart and circulatory problems.

[hammock]

Can you share a good article about the misconceptions of cholesterol and the dangers of statins? I've been looking for a decent source. I have a family member on a statin now.

[1_player]

There are some interesting talks about keto and zero carb on Youtube about fat metabolism, cholesterol, fructose, etc.

Off the top of my head, I remember the "zero carb down under" channel where some are hosted, including Lustig's talks.

/r/KetoScience delves into the research, if you are so inclined.

[tsimionescu]

But aren't statins successful in preventing heart disease, in clinical trials?

My understanding was that other classes of medicine that reduce serum cholesterol levels have shown no effects on heart disease in clinical trials.

[ncmncm]

Sadly, no. Statins have been successful at preventing Nth heart attacks, N>1, with some evidence of preventing first heart attacks in people badly at risk, i.e. already with heart disease. It is far from clear how that works.

Vendors have eagerly sought for any hint of evidence of preventing heart disease, or anything else, for decades, and have come up empty. That does not stop physicians from prescribing statins for slightly elevated cholesterol. Pharmaceutical companies love drugs like statins that don't cure anything, so you have to take them every month, forever. They have proven very skilled at manipulating the opinions of medical doctors, e.g. scandalously in the case recent case of opioids.

Making your liver ignore signals to produce the cholesterol your body needs to function is a very bad idea, on par with irradiating your thymus gland when it becomes enlarged (which was done, and recently! Your thymus gland is part of your immune system, enlarged when it is working.)

[awwaiid]

I'd expect taking statins to then increase risk of heart failure, were it that simple.

[ncmncm]

Taking statins causes other problems, instead.

More particularly, permanent muscle damage.