According to the American Heart Association, your cholesterol levels should be below 200 mg/dl while levels of 200-239 mg/dl are borderline high, and anything over that is considered high. However, according to lipid biochemistry expert Mary Enig, PhD in the Weston A. Price Foundation quarterly magazine:
“Blood cholesterol levels between 200 and 240 mg/dl are normal. These levels have always been normal. In older women, serum cholesterol levels greatly above these numbers are also quite normal, and in fact they have been shown to be associated with longevity.
Since 1984, however, in the United States and other parts of the western world, these normal numbers have been treated as if they were an indication of a disease in progress or a potential for disease in the future.”
Many natural health experts believe in this latter explanation of cholesterol, pointing out that many Americans may be taking statin cholesterol-lowering drugs unnecessarily, believing their cholesterol is dangerously high when it is not.
According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, “… Total cholesterol level is just about worthless in determining your risk for heart disease, unless it is above 330.”
Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Often Unnecessary … and Dangerous
Statin drugs to lower cholesterol carry steep side effects, may not be effective at lowering your heart attack risk, and may be prescribed to people whose cholesterol levels are not really dangerously high.
Enig continues:
“As a result of some of this misinformation, which was purposefully planted by the leadership of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in 1984, many hundreds of thousands of people are treated with expensive medications to prevent the development of a non-existent illness.
If the medications were only expensive and not life threatening, their use could no doubt be shrugged off as a harmless snake oil pharmaceutical scam; but, in fact, these are thoroughly dangerous medications for both physical and emotional reasons—for physical reasons because their use can lead to serious untreatable diseases such as liver cancer, and for emotional reasons because their use perpetuates the myth that cholesterol is dangerous and evil.”
Perpetuation of such selective myths unquestionably create and instill Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (F.U.D. Factors). These are the cornerstones of proven successful corporate marketing and market loyalty referred to by many corporations as repeat customer market retention… which could result in metaphysical dependencies and/or addiction.
In fact, statin drugs have been linked to serious muscle problems, cognitive problems and peripheral neuropathy, increases in blood glucose levels, tendon problems and an increase in liver enzymes, leading to permanent liver damage.
Statin drugs are also known to block the production of important nutrients in your body, including CoQ10, which is beneficial to heart health and muscle function. If CoQ10 levels become depleted, it can actually cause heart failure.
Further, there are serious question over whether statins actually work to lower heart disease risk. While numbers touted often make it seem like the drugs are beneficial, when examined by a little-known statistic called “number needed to treat” (NNT), the benefit is questionable at best.
For instance, the cholesterol drug Lipitor’s NNT is 100, which means that in order for one person to benefit, 100 people need to be treated with the drug for more than three years. In other words, in a 3.5-year trial, there was one fewer heart attack per 100 people on Lipitor equaling a reported whopping 1%. One person had a benefit, while 99 did not.
The remaining question is what percentage of those taking Lipitor and other cholesterol drugs had side effects, CoQ10 deficiencies, and or heart failure?
Excerpt From: Cholesterol and Heart Disease #1 Killer MYTHS You Need To Know! What Can You do to Prevent This Killer Naturally?
