Dangerous doctoring

When the cure is worse than the disease

I’m sure for many, that title immediately conjured images of Covid and the way the medical establishment, and government agencies, handled the virus outbreak. Covid definitely revealed issues within the healthcare industry, but was it just a scratch on the surface? While there was definitely some dangerous doctoring involved there, that is not the topic for this discussion. There are other reasons for mistrust of medical practitioners, and the one I am about to examine is probably almost as widespread as Covid.

Today, I want to talk about one of the most mishandled and mischaracterized medical misfits of all - cholesterol. We have heard for decades about how high cholesterol, especially LDL (low-density lipoproteins), are hazardous to our health and you need to keep cholesterol levels in check. As such, the medical industrial complex cautions people to follow a diet high in fiber and low in fat and to minimize intake of cholesterol-rich foods. It follows almost along the lines of the typical USDA recommendations. Most people accept this as sound advice, but that is because most people are misinformed. One point about cholesterol that many have never heard is that cholesterol is necessary to good health.

Cholesterol is found in every cell in the body. From cell membranes, to hormones, to vitamin D, and more, cholesterol even comprises a significant portion of the brain. Much of the cholesterol used for manufacturing these comes from dietary cholesterol. That said, another point about cholesterol that many have never heard (and likely won’t hear from their doctors) is that dietary cholesterol accounts for only a relatively insignificant amount of serum cholesterol levels.

So, from where does the other 80%+ of the cholesterol in your blood come? Your body produces it. Yes, your body produces it, largely in the liver. As well, the liver is responsible for the removal of excess cholesterol in the blood.

When more is being produced than is removed, and cholesterol levels get too high, then indeed, the cholesterol may cause problems. Thus, doctors set about the task of bringing down cholesterol, again, via dietary advice and also often with statin drugs. This is where the wicket gets sticky.

First off, statin drugs have a litany of harmful side effects:

• Headache

• Difficulty sleeping

• Flushing of the skin

• Muscle aches (myalgia), tenderness, or weakness

• Drowsiness

• Dizziness

• Nausea or vomiting

• Belly cramping or pain

• Bloating or gas

• Diarrhea

• Constipation

• Rash

• Low levels of blood platelets

• Hair loss

• Pins and needles sensations, such as pricking, numbness, or tingling on your skin

• Liver inflammation, which can make you feel like you have the flu

• Pancreas inflammation, which can cause stomach pain

• Skin problems such as rashes or acne

• Sexual problems, such as erectile dysfunction or a low sex drive 

Statins also carry warnings that memory loss, mental confusion, neuropathy, high blood sugar, type 2 diabetes, myositis (muscle inflammation), and rhabdomyolysis (extreme muscle inflammation and damage). You get the point - the list of direct negative effects is long. Quite concerning, wouldn’t you say?

What’s worse, however, is one inadvertent but always present side-effect. Statins lower serum cholesterol levels by inhibiting the action of Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA (HMG-CoA) reductase, an enzyme that regulates cholesterol production in the liver. The problem is, the liver produces that cholesterol for a reason; aside from the functions already mentioned, cholesterol is produced in response to inflammation, and, to a degree, has an anti-inflammatory effect.

Thus, statins shut down the body’s natural attempt to fight inflammation. It’s like having the brake pads on your car wearing down, and it’s starting to gouge and warp your rotors, so you drain some brake fluid to keep the pads from having solid contact with the rotors. The problem (worn pads) is not being addressed and still causing a problem, and draining the brake fluid is making the issue even more dangerous and stopping the car’s brake system from functioning as intended. This will inevitably lead to catastrophic consequences.

For those not mechanically inclined, another comparison would be to having a vegetable garden, and when you find weeds growing in it, you start plucking leaves off the weeds. They still have roots working their way through your garden and stealing essential water and nutrients from your vegetables until eventually they kill off the plants. It’s avoiding treating the root of the problem and instead, treating the symptoms, something about which I intend to write further.

Even inflammation is really just a symptom. Usually, the root cause is a poor diet, or a diet comprised of foods expected to be healthy, and lack of beneficial exercise. Some cardio is good, but resistance training has far greater and more lasting benefits. Eating properly is good, but most people don’t even know what that is due to poor government and physician recommendations and failure to know what is in the products they buy.

To truly be healthy, the food we eat should be as close in form as, and raised in a manner as closely resembling, the way God made it. Cows are meant to feed on grass, not grain. Our systems are not suited for processing pesticides and herbicides. But most are completely unaware of the dangerous chemicals and concoctions they ingest on a daily basis.

While many may argue whether GMO foods are themselves safe, the reason for making GMOs is to enable those plants to withstand heavy saturation with chemicals such as glyphosate (Round-Up), the residue of which ends up in your food and has been shown to be an endocrine disruptor (and potential carcinogen). These kinds of foods can lead to inflammation.

Early in human history, oils used in foods were only those able to be easily cold-pressed without special machinery and chemical extraction/refinement. Now, oils (many rancid from sitting on store shelves) are extracted and refined using high heat and chemicals that remove and/or damage many of the beneficial properties of the oils, and leaving chemical residues behind. These oils contribute to inflammation.

People also misuse oils. Some oils (mono- and poly-unsaturated) are better suited to low- or no-heat applications. Saturated fats (butter, coconut oil, avocado oil) are better adapted to high-heat applications such as frying, since these fats do not suffer the same type of damage when heat is applied as their mono- and poly-unsaturated counterparts do. Using mono- (olive oil) and poly-unsaturated fats for high-heat cooking can lead to inflammation.

Meats, like grass-fed beef, while they contain cholesterol, can also be high in beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, and also provide healthy saturated fat, protein, amino acids, iron, and a host of other important nutrients; treat these cows with steroids and feed them grain (like mash from breweries - boiled down corn and grains completely devoid of nutritional content), and that same beef becomes baneful. Such tainted meats add to inflammation.

So many other items we ingest (fluoride and other chemicals in water) and to which we are exposed all can lead to inflammation. Reducing exposure to this inasmuch as possible (in today’s society it is near impossible to eliminate such exposure), avoiding highly-processed and chemical-laden foods, herbicide-tainted vegetables (and even herbicide use in your own yard), replacing harmful oils with beneficial fats and using the right fats for the right type of cooking, and eating properly-raised meats (don’t even get me started on farm-raised fish) are all methods of targeting the root of the problem, rather than the symptoms.