Originally Posted by
chandltp
That is true.. and why I try to take as little medication as possible. I've been on meds for various issues in the past and decide that the side effects are worse than the issue itself in many cases.
I haven't read a single thing that convinces me that artificially lowering cholesterol has any impact on incidence of heart disease. I do believe that high cholesterol is a potential indicator for heart disease, because it's the body's way of trying to heal itself. Statins don't do anything to fix the underlying problem that contributed to the high cholesterol to begin with.. so it's kind of like stopping the bleeding from a gun shot wound but leaving the bullet in (which is admittedly probably a flawed analogy in some way).
Now naturally lowering cholesterol with diet and exercise is a completely different story, one which I believe can be highly effective.
I wish you the best of health. I trust that you're making the decisions that are best for you. Although you may want to research statins and memory loss if you're concerned about dementia.. and keep a look out for the signs.
Actually, I agree with all that you say except: "I haven't read a single thing that convinces me that artificially lowering cholesterol has any impact on incidence of heart disease." I suspect you are not reading medical literature and the studies that back it up. I have found them to be quite convincing.
But, I especially agree that statins do nothing to treat the causes of that disease. Only diet and exercise can do that.
Caldwell Esselstyn however makes a good argument that the diet that most physicians recommend is not sufficient to control or reverse heart disease... It may help -- but not enough -- because it is usually just a minor reduction in the things that caused the disease in the first place. So, once again, people resort to pills to treat the symptoms of their disease.
He proposes a far more stingent dietary approach than most people want to deal with or think is safe.