More News About Statins and What To Do About It

Are you one of the many who have been prescribed a statin drug by your doctor as a way to prevent heart disease?   A recent study  of postmenopausal women,  led by Dr. Yunsheng Ma of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, has found that statins may increase some people’s chances of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Steven Nissen, cardiology chairman at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the research, fears that people who need and will benefit from statins will be scared off of using the drugs because of reports like this.

So what exactly are statins?  According to the Mayo Clinic,  statins are drugs that can lower your cholesterol. They work by blocking a substance your body needs to make cholesterol. Statins may also help your body reabsorb cholesterol that has built up in plaques on your artery walls, preventing further blockage in your blood vessels and heart attacks.

Statins include well-known medications such as atorvastatin (Lipitor), simvastatin (Zocor), lovastatin (Mevacor), pravastatin (Pravachol), rosuvastatin (Crestor) and others. Lower cost generic versions of many statin medications are available.  This class of medication, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, generate more than $15 billion in worldwide sales every year; and 40 million Americans have been recommended to take them for the rest of their lives.  Basically, statins have become the most profitable drug class in the world.

One interesting fact about statins ~ In Canada all statin drugs require warnings that the drugs reduce the coenzyme Q10 level ~ one  the substances needed for the creation of energy by virtually every cell of your body.

According to Michael B. Schachter, M.D., when these drugs are given to lower LDL cholesterol levels in order to reduce risks of a heart attack, CoQ10 levels in the tissues are lowered, thus increasing risk for heart disease.  He believes anyone taking Mevacor or similar type drugs should be on a significant dosage of CoQ10.  He also mentions beta blockers, drugs that are used extensively to treat heart disease, high blood pressure and other conditions, also deplete the heart and other tissues of  CoQ10.  Unfortunately, most cardiologists and conventional physicians in the U.S. are unaware of this fact and do not give patients on these drugs supplements of CoQ10.

The Women’s Health study mentioned above certainly can be looked at as a needed note of caution for women.  Taking a statin cholesterol-lowering drug should be your last resort, but if you do take one, it might be advantageous that you also take the supplement  CoQ10 to replenish what has been lost by taking that statin.

My husband was recently requested by his doctor to begin taking a statin to reduce his cholesterol.  Rather than take a drug, he chose to take a heart-healthy choice,  containing 2,000 mg of plant sterols and stanols found naturally in plants, fruits, vegetables, and grains,  and clinically proven by more than 80 studies to lower LDL cholesterol.  Other suggested lifestyle changes for lowering our cholesterol include:

1. Decreasing our intake of saturated at to less than 7% of total calories
2. Decreasing our dietary cholesterol intake to less than 200 mg per day
3. Losing 10 pounds if overweight
4. Adding  5-10 g of soluble fiber to our diet each day
5. And adding that 2,000 mg of plant sterols and stanols to our diet each day