New Cholesterol Fraud Perpetrated
on the U.S. Population?

Health Matters
Minutes Article
Jul 23, 2004

The completion of five tests relating cholesterol to heart risk, recommending new cholesterol guidelines which the FDA has accepted, were sponsored and paid for by the very drug companies who manufacture cholesterol lowering drugs and happily sell them to you.

Of the 9 medical researchers who led these tests, 8 have been monetarily supported with consulting and other fees by these very same drug companies, according to an article that appeared in the 07-18-04 Arizona Republic.

Neither The Republic nor the St. Paul Star Tribune, editorial below, nor I are happy with this new fraud being perpetrated on the U.S. population.

The government is now putting millions more at risk while filling the pockets of the drug companies with billions more in profit dollars.

The most famous heart study of them all, the Framington Heart Study which has been ongoing for decades, warns that cholesterol levels below 160 are very dangerous to your health and could cause death. 

Here are some of the life-giving molecules that our body produces from cholesterol through our liver: vitamin D, estrogen, testosterone, bile and adrenal steroids.

Every cell in our body, and that includes our brain cells, contains cholesterol. We cannot live without it!

When will our government start looking to nutritional cures for heart disease, which have been available for decades, and stop promoting the use of drugs which only make matter worse?

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune 
Last update: July 15, 2004 at 7:27 PM 

Editorial: Cholesterol/Take a look beyond guidelines 
July 16, 2004 ED0716A

The government's new cholesterol guidelines, recommending that millions of people strive for levels so low they were thought to be out of reach just a few years ago, have surely alarmed many a lipid-conscious American.

But before running to the doctor for a new prescription, or despairing over the difficulty of hitting these ever-retreating targets, it's worth considering the built-in limitations of the cholesterol guidelines -- and of the research findings that prompted them.

It's beyond question that elevated levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL, or "bad" cholesterol) are associated with higher risks of heart disease and stroke; volumes of research consistently show this correlation. But it's far less clear that cholesterol deserves its status as the primary indicator of heart-disease risk -- a role it has assumed more or less by default, because it's so easy to measure.

Indeed, the strength of the causal link between high LDL and actual heart attacks remains a matter of some debate. Even more controversial is the notion that achieving rock-bottom readings can deliver a markedly greater reduction in risk.

This is because both high cholesterol and heart disease, as we all know but prefer to forget, are usually products of poor choices across a wide range of lifestyle matters. Most of us eat and drink too much, eat the wrong foods and exercise too little; too many of us aggravate the problem of high cholesterol by smoking, ignoring high blood pressure and so on. After all, there are pills that will bring down the LDL.

These are the statin drugs, which are both the inspiration for the new guidelines and also their clear beneficiary. The recommendations are based on five new studies suggesting that statins can reduce LDL to levels as low as 70, well beyond the current targets of 100 for people at high risk of heart disease and 130 for people at moderate risk. Thus the National Institutes of Health recommendation that the at-risk populations -- which include about 40 percent of all Americans -- consider lowering their LDL readings to the lowest level that statins are able to deliver.

This is a message to delight the drug companies -- who, of course, fund and conduct the clinical trials of their products' effectiveness. But its narrow focus on one health indicator, and one remedy, could send a simplistic signal to the public, which ought to take a wider view.

In passing, the NIH report acknowledges that "therapeutic lifestyle changes (TLC) remain an essential modality" in addressing cholesterol problems. But this may be the most important message for people with cholesterol problems to hear.

To be sure, statins have generally proved safe for most users, and highly effective at cutting LDL. But they can't offset the other consequences of a couch-potato approach to diet and exercise. And they're expensive -- often around $100 a month at retail -- which helps to explain why only about half the people who probably should be taking statins are actually doing so, and why so many who start using them don't continue.

Whether or not they take statins, people with cholesterol problems should be equally attentive to research showing that LDL can be dramatically lowered by shedding excess weight, exercising regularly, eating more sensibly and using certain natural anti-cholesterol substances, from soy protein and soluble fiber to niacin and fenugreek. In other words, by treating those at-risk bodies with a lot more TLC.

To Your Good Health And Longevity!

Ira Marxe
CEO, Good Health Supplement

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