Not long ago, a medical reporter friend of mine, Lynn Allison, asked me to comment on a recent article in The Daily Mail, the title of which was:
MORE experts claim statins are a waste of time.
The article went on to say that studies show that cutting cholesterol fails to slash heart risk. (That is correct.) It said that millions were being mislead about the side effects of the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins (also correct). And that the side effects of these drugs were far more common than studies suggested. (That too, is correct.)
Lynn asked me for a comment. This is what I said.
This new article is a wonderful development, but not wholly unexpected. My book with cardiologist Dr. Steven Sinatra— The Great Cholesterol Myth— references dozens and dozens of studies which cast serious doubt on– or in some cases totally refute– the notion that cholesterol causes heart disease.
Dr. Sinatra and I listed several peer-reviewed studies that showed that more than half the people admitted to hospitals for cardiovascular disease have normal “bad” cholesterol (less than 100 LDL), and just under half had desirable levels of “good” cholesterol (more than 40 HDL). Not only doesn’t cholesterol cause heart disease, it’s a lousy PREDICTOR of it!
Yet the accepted “conventional” wisdom is that lowering cholesterol lowers the risk of heart disease. It does not. As i said on Dr. Oz, “Trying to lower the risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol is like trying to lower the risk of obesity by taking the lettuce off your Big Mac”.