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> Also statins are terrible with worse side effects. Fix your diet, not the estimated amount of cholesterol in your blood tests. Whether or not to take a statin is a _complicated_ decision, based on _many_ variables. Maybe statins didn't work out in your situation, but please don't suggest things like this. "Fix your diet" is _very_ difficult, as well as ambiguous (e.g. carnivores and vegans will both claim that their diet will save lives. Vegans have more actual data, carnivores are louder and more interested in pointing out possible mechanisms). The best research we have suggests that statins save a _lot_ of lives. _And_ that most of the "adverse reaction to statin" effects are statistically indistinguishable from people who aren't on statins. Heck, look at the "Adverse Effects" section of the wikipedia page. Cerivastatin _did_ raise the risk of muscle issues, some of them serious. But A) not by much, and B) it's been withdrawn for > 20 years. FWIW, I'm one of those people who eats "well", runs, lifts, meditates, used to drink white wine until the correlation was disproved,... and still had a cholesterol over 500. Until I started taking my current statin. That means I'm actually one of the comparatively few people on a statin who doesn't know that it reduces my risk (the mechanism of cholesterol regulation and/or production in me is different than in most people. We don't actually know whether statins lower my risk. We do know that statins lower my cholesterol, and that lowers risk for people with the more common mechanisms, so I'm playing the odds.). Re: side effects, I _think_ I had increased muscle soreness after lifting when I started on statins, but I googled, and that's also a thing that just happens to people around 40. Right now I'm 50, pulling more than twice what I weigh, and still running, so it can't be _that_ big an issue. It's not like I was a professional athlete until I started taking statins. Which is a sample size of 1, but that's backed up by the studies, so... > "not the estimated amount of cholesterol in your blood tests" We know that lowering "the estimated amount of cholesterol in your blood tests" correlates with lowering your risk of cardiovascular issues. So actually, yes, as a rule, lower the estimated amount of cholesterol in your blood test. Statins aren't the only way, but they do a lot of good for a lot of people. NB: I'm not affiliated with any statin producer, except that I take a statin daily. I'm also not a doctor, but I've had ridiculously high cholesterol since I was in utero, and have been trying to keep abreast of the research for about 30 years now. |
The best research we have suggests that statins do bugger all, maybe reducing a little your LDL, while other research shows a correlation between LDL levels and longevity. Yes that's right, people living longer tend to have higher levels of maligned LDL. Which means we have no idea how lipid metabolism works still.
If you liked that talk from Dr. Mason about cholesterol, here's one about statins and how little useful they actually are: https://youtu.be/I7r4j1u42V8
They are actually good at reducing cholesterol, sure, but it's just a misunderstood marker. Doctors use it to measure your health but it is not per se dangerous. Having pathological levels of cholesterol in utero would benefit from it, but if you're eating burger and pizzas, fix your diet, a pill's not gonna save you.