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The Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven't Been Told About Cholesterol-Lowering Medication, Part 10

By Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD
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Honolulu Hearth Program (2001)

This report, part of an ongoing study, looked at cholesterol lowering in the elderly. Researchers compared changes in cholesterol concentrations over 20 years with all-cause mortality.

To quote: "Our data accords with previous findings of increased mortality in elderly people with low serum cholesterol, and show that long-term persistence of low cholesterol concentration actually increases risk of death. Thus, the earlier that patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations, the greater the risk of death.

The most striking findings were related to changes in cholesterol between examination three (1971-74) and examination four (1991-93). There are few studies that have cholesterol concentrations from the same patients at both middle age and old age.

Although our results lend support to previous findings that low serum cholesterol imparts a poor outlook when compared with higher concentrations of cholesterol in elderly people, our data also suggest that those individuals with a low serum cholesterol maintained over a 20-year period will have the worst outlook for all-cause mortality."

MIRACL (2001)

The MIRACL study looked at the effects of a high dose of Lipitor on 3,086 patients in the hospital after angina or nonfatal MI and followed them for 16 weeks. According to the abstract: "For patients with acute coronary syndrome, lipid-lowering therapy with atorvastatin, 80 mg/day, reduced recurrent ischemic events in the first 16 weeks, mostly recurrent symptomatic ischemia requiring rehospitalization."

What the abstract did not mention was that there was no change in death rate compared to controls and no significant change in re-infarction rate or need for resuscitation from cardiac arrest.

The only change was a significant drop in chest pain requiring rehospitalization.

ALLHAT (2002)

ALLHAT (Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial), the largest North American cholesterol-lowering trial ever and the largest trial in the world using Lipitor, showed mortality of the treatment group and controls after three or six years was identical.

Researchers used data from more than 10,000 participants and followed them over a period of four years, comparing the use of a statin drug to "usual care," namely maintaining proper body weight, no smoking, regular exercise, etc., in treating subjects with moderately high levels of LDL cholesterol. Of the 5170 subjects in the group that received statin drugs, 28 percent lowered their LDL cholesterol significantly. And of the 5,185 usual-care subjects, about 11 percent had a similar drop in LDL.

But both groups showed the same rates of death, heart attack and heart disease.

Click to Read Part 11




Before starting any self treatment Dr. Grisanti recommends that you consider consulting with a doctor trained in functional medicine. Visit www.FunctionalMedicineUniversity.com to find doctors thoroughly trained in functional medicine

Functional medicine embraces the totality of the regulatory functions of the body. It encompasses all of the biophysical, biochemical, enzymatic, endocrine, immunological, and bioenergetic regulatory capacities.

Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., D.A.C.B.N., M.S.