Recently, Dr. John McDougall wrote an incredible article regarding statin drugs entitled, Who Should Take Cholesterol-lowering Statins? Everyone or No One? It is an article that anyone with any type of heart problems or anyone taking statin drugs should read. His website is www.drmcdougall,com and to subscribe is free.
I met Dr. McDougall back in the late 70s in Hawaii. His first and foremost treatment recommended to his patients was a diet change to a starch-based diet.
‘Should cholesterol-lowering statins be added to our drinking water in order to prevent atherosclerosis, like fluoride is added to prevent tooth decay?
Some medical doctors and scientists have recommended this public health measure because heart disease and strokes threaten the lives of more than half of all people following the Western diet.
Apparently, even healthy people are now being told to take statins, with recommendations that over the age of 50, regardless of their health history, people should take these medications daily.
In my practice over the past decade I have limited my prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering medications to people who are at high risk for future troubles.
Unless there is a contraindication, I have recommended statins to patients with a history of heart surgery, heart disease, TIAs, or strokes, with a goal to take a dosage sufficient to lower their blood cholesterol levels to 150 mg/dL (4 mmol/L) or less.
Furthermore, based on the recommendations of the highly respected Cochrane Collaboration and others, I have advised that otherwise healthy people, even those with high cholesterol, not take cholesterol-lowering statins. Of course, I have strongly recommended that everyone eat a healthy diet.
Statins effectively lower blood cholesterol by inhibiting an enzyme (HMG-CoA reductase) involved in the production of cholesterol in the liver. The cholesterol numbers, revealed by simple blood tests, are dramatically reduced with this commonly prescribed treatment.
Unfortunately, the reduction in blood cholesterol translates into only very small improvements in the health of the arteries, as seen by tiny (but statistically significant) reductions in heart disease.
These weak benefits can be appreciated in very sick people who are at high risk for future health problems. This strategy is called secondary prevention. They have already had a serious problem.
However, the benefits from statins are very difficult to demonstrate in healthy people because their risk of future troubles is very low, and remember I wrote, the real-life benefits from statins are very small. This strategy is called primary prevention. Nothing serious has happened, yet. Intervention is being recommended in hopes of preventing a serious event in the future.
There is an ongoing controversy as to whether or not statins should be more widely prescribed. The doctors and scientists working for pharmaceutical companies think they should be. But, consider the influence of money on their findings and opinions. Annually, $37 billion is spent on cholesterol-lowering medications worldwide.
The most recent review (January 2013) by the Cochrane Collaboration has concluded that there is, “…strong evidence to support their use in people at low risk of cardiovascular disease.”
This is a reversal from their previous conclusions, which recommended against such treatment for people without a history of heart disease (for primary prevention).
As a result, I am changing the way I present information to people on the use of statins.
For practical purposes, choosing whether or not to take these kinds of medication should be based on an understanding of the actual benefits and risks as assessed by various experts.
Currently, the data is based on the study of people who eat the Western diet. I believe the benefits will be found to be far less in people who consume a starch-based McDougall-type diet.
A recent analysis, published in the medical journal, the Lancet, by John Abramson, MD, a guest speaker at two previous McDougall Advanced Study weekends, summarizes the effects of statin therapy: “Our analysis suggests that lipid-lowering statins should not be prescribed for true primary prevention in women of any age or for men older than 69 years. High-risk men aged 30–69 years should be advised that about 50 patients need to be treated for 5 years to prevent one event.
In our experience, many men presented with this evidence do not choose to take a statin, especially when informed of the potential benefits of lifestyle modification on cardiovascular risk and overall health.”
Cholesterol-lowering statin therapy is based on the observation that high cholesterol levels in a person’s blood are associated with more heart attacks and stroke.
The organic substance cholesterol is found in large amounts in all animal foods. When people eat meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products their blood cholesterol levels rise.
The rationale is that lowering these levels with medication will fix the problem. As discussed above, the real-life benefits have been minimal. Not surprisingly, this failure has led researchers to look into other mechanisms to explain how eating animal products and other unhealthy foods cause artery damage.
| Here is another practical way of looking at the benefits and risks of statin therapy. |
|
Benefits for those who
took statins for 5 years:
Primary prevention (without
known heart disease):
98% saw no benefit 0% were helped by being saved from death 1.6% were helped by preventing a heart attack 0.4% were helped by preventing a stroke Secondary Prevention (with known heart disease): 96% saw no benefit 1.2% were helped by being saved from death 2.6% were helped by preventing a repeat heart attack 0.8% were helped by preventing a stroke Side effects include: 0.6% to 1.5% were harmed by developing diabetes, 10% were harmed by muscle damage. Provided by the “Number-Needed-to-Treat” (NNT) website, www.thennt.com. |
Antibiotics May Be the Next Blockbuster Drugs to Treat Heart Disease
In April of 2013, an article in Nature Medicine and one in the New England Journal of Medicine found that a diet of meat, dairy products, and eggs caused damage to the arteries by increasing the production of trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO).
Carnatine and choline, found in these animal foods in high concentrations, are metabolized by gut microbes (bacteria) into trimethylamine (TMA), which in turn is absorbed into the bloodstream and then metabolized by the liver into TMAO. This organic compound has been shown to cause artery damage in animal experiments and is strongly associated with heart disease in people.
Meat, dairy products, eggs, and other animal foods favor the growth of bacteria that readily convert carnatine and choline to TMA.
Vegans and vegetarians grow few of these kinds of bacteria and as a result produce very little artery-damaging TMAO.
This research may lead to medical treatments, including the use of probiotics (bacteria supplied in pills and fermented foods), medications to limit the synthesis of trimethylamine from carnatine and choline, and/or antibiotics to suppress specific TMA-producing bacteria in the intestine.
In all three pharmacologic approaches the medications would need to be taken for a lifetime. Great profits will be generated as a result, just like with statins.
Starches, vegetables, and fruits are essentially cholesterol-free and discourage the growth of intestinal bacteria that lead to the synthesis of artery-damaging TMAO; and these foods contain very little carnatine and choline (the precursors of TMAO). Unarguably,—whether blaming cholesterol, carnatine, choline, or bad-bowel-bacteria—diseases of atherosclerosis (heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, etc.) are due to consuming meat, dairy products, and eggs.
Therefore I recommend the McDougall Diet to prevent and treat heart and other artery diseases. In other words, fix the problem.
Lack of profit is the primary reason for lack of acceptance of this simple, safe approach.
Consider that the most popular brand name statin, Crestor, purchased at a discount pharmacy like Costco or CVS, costs about $6 a day.
Comparatively, a starch-based diet costs $3 a day for all of the food (2500 calories).
The rivers of profits from a drug-over-diet approach extend to the food and medical industries. (Generic statins are much less expensive.)
Our research shows that the cholesterol-lowering benefits of the McDougall Diet are comparable to statins. We have analyzed the results of 1700 people who have been through the McDougall residential program in Santa Rosa. In seven days people starting with total cholesterol of 200 mg/dL or more experience a reduction of 34.2 mg/dL on average. If the starting number is 240 mg/dL or more, the average reduction is 42.1 mg/dL. (If LDL is initially 100 mg/dL or greater, the average reduction is 21.1 mg/dL; if 160 mg/dL or greater, the average reduction is 31.5 mg/dL.)
To answer the question, “Who Should Take Cholesterol-lowering Statins? Everyone or No One?” My response is slightly more complex than all or none.
The decisions made primarily depend upon what a person chooses to eat. Eat meat, dairy products, eggs, and other unhealthy foods and you may benefit from taking statins (a little).
Eat a starch-based McDougall Diet and any benefits from statins for an otherwise healthy person vanish, and all that is left are side effects and costs.
However, as a medical doctor trained in traditional drug therapy, I want to take advantage of both worlds: diet and drugs.
For most patients with serious existing disease, such as those with a history of heart surgery, heart disease, TIAs, or stroke, in addition to my diet I recommend sufficient cholesterol-lowering statin medications to lower their blood cholesterol to 150 mg/dL or less.
| Commonly prescribed cholesterol-lowering statins: |
| atorvastatin (Lipitor and Torvast) fluvastatin (Lescol) lovastatin (Mevacor, Altocor, Altoprev) pitavastatin (Livalo, Pitava) pravastatin (Pravachol, Selektine, Lipostat) rosuvastatin (Crestor) simvastatin (Zocor, Lipex). Understand also that these medications need to be taken indefinitely. The blood cholesterol goes back up when they are stopped—unless, of course, the patient changes his or her diet. High dosages do not reduce the risk of death more than standard dosages (such as pravastatin 40 mg daily). High dosages do reduce the risk of non-fatal heart attacks compared to standard dosages. High dosages increase the risk of death in women compared to standard dosages and have more side effects for both men and women. Therefore, whenever possible, a standard dosage or lower is preferred. |
*I reserve my right to change my opinion on medications and surgeries because the foundations—the scientific research—for my recommendations are incomplete, inaccurate, and constantly changing. However, in case you are wondering, my advice on what you should eat (a starch-based diet) will not waiver because the scientific underpinnings are rock solid”.
Aloha!
Sources:
Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.
After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a "plastic" community would be an understatement.
Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.
I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, " let's become vegetarians". I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, "okay"! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.
So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, "The Little Kitchen".
Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.
I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I'll elaborate on that in a minute.
But right now, back to "The Little Kitchen". Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.
The owner said to me, "Let's make a deal. You do our tax return and we'll feed you as well". So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.
But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, "Hawaii". Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called," Mr. Natural's". I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at "Mr. Natural's." To make a long story short, that's exactly what happened.
So, I'm working at "Mr. Natural's" and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle - it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka'anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.
Since I was the new guy, and didn't really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that's exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.
I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.
Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I'm asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn't thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, "You expected anything less"? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, 'enchilada's at "Natural's" tonight'. I never had to cook anything else.
A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That's when they found out I was an accountant and "Down to Earth" was born. "Down to Earth" became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.
In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD's that would call in asking for my credentials.
My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.
I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii's premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She said," If you want to be with me you've got to stop working on naked women". So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.
Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a "chicken" or "egg" or "fish" or "pig" or "cow" was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.
The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.
Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.
For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.
Namaste!
