Everyone seems to know someone who has high cholesterol, and the feedback on what’s best for treating high cholesterol can be contradictory and confusing.
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But a new study profiled in Business Insider shows the best way to lower cholesterol is not through drugs, but by eating foods with healthier fats — like avocados — and exercising regularly.
It generally takes at least three months to lower cholesterol and you will still need to maintain a healthy lifestyle afterward for any change to be effective, according to the report. Foods that can lower cholesterol include nuts, avocados, whole grains, fruits, vegetables and healthy oils.
For the past six decades, health officials have warned against eating cholesterol-rich foods, claiming dietary cholesterol promotes arterial plaque formation that leads to heart disease. Not true, it turns out.
Even so, some health officials and drug manufacturers continue to tout the merits of statin cholesterol-lowering drugs and pooh-pooh any evidence to the contrary, while experts in the field continue to speak out against statins.
Recent research showed people who had ever used statins had a 38% higher risk of Type 2 diabetes.
The only group of people who may benefit from a cholesterol-lowering medication are those with genetic familial hypercholesterolemia. This is the vast minority of people taking these drugs, probably far less than one in 1,000. However, a staggering number of Americans — more than 78 million — are taking cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Cholesterol is not bad and is not to blame for cardiovascular disease. It is a vital component to nearly every cell in your body for the construction of cell membranes, regulation of cell signaling and neurological health. Multiple studies found it was impossible for cholesterol to be the main cause of heart disease because those with low levels had the same levels of arterial sclerosis as those with high levels.
Benefits from cholesterol-lowering drugs claimed by statin supporters and manufacturers have been found to be ineffective and unsafe.
Heart disease is driven by a chronic inflammatory response in your body. You can counter this through an adequate intake of magnesium, reducing insulin secretion, balancing omega-3 and omega-6 fat ratio and maintaining iron levels in safe limits.
Evidence has shown that high LDL and total cholesterol are not an indication of heart disease risk and thus, any statin treatment as a primary prevention is of doubtful benefit.
Consider that older people with high LDL do not die prematurely — they actually live the longest, outliving both those with untreated low LDL and those on statin treatment.
Multiple drug studies found statin use postponed death by a mere 3.2 days in primary prevention trials and 4.1 days in secondary prevention trials. Good grief, you live three or four days longer? Wouldn’t it be cheaper, safer and more effective to just eat an avocado and exercise every day?
Overall, the evidence supporting the use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs to lower your risk of heart disease is slim to none, and is likely little more than the manufactured work of statin makers. Statins are a huge and profitable business, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why drug makers will continue to sing their statin praises as long as they can.