Heart health

There is evidence showing that statins may make your heart health worse and only appear effective due to statistical deception. One report published in the Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology concluded that statin advocates used a statistical tool called relative risk reduction (RRR) to amplify statins' trivial beneficial effects.11

If you look at absolute risk, statin drugs benefit just 1 percent of the population. This means that out of 100 people treated with the drugs, one person will have one less heart attack. This doesn't sound so impressive, so statin supporters use a different statistic called relative risk. Just by making this statistical slight of hand, statins suddenly become beneficial for 30-50 percent of the population.

As STATS at George Mason University explained, "An important feature of relative risk is that it tells you nothing about the actual risk."12 Further, statins deplete your body of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which is used for energy production by every cell in your body, and is therefore vital for good health, high-energy levels, longevity, and general quality of life.

CoQ10's reduced form, ubiquinol, is a critical component of cellular respiration and production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is a coenzyme used as an energy carrier in every cell of your body. When you consider that your heart is the most energy-demanding organ in your body, you can surmise how potentially devastating it can be to deplete your body's main source of cellular energy.

So while one of statins' claims to fame is warding off heart disease, you're actually increasing your risk when you deplete your body of CoQ10. The depletion of CoQ10 caused by the drug is why statins can increase your risk of acute heart failure.

If you take a statin drug, you MUST take Coenzyme Q10 as a supplement. If you're over 40, I would strongly recommend taking ubiquinol (CoQ10's reduced form) instead of CoQ10, as it's far more effectively absorbed by your body.

How to Protect Your Heart Health

Are you looking for a non-drug way to boost your heart health? Here are some of my top recommendations:

• Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your diet. It is vitally important to eliminate gluten-containing grains and sugars, especially fructose.
• Consume a good portion of your food raw.
• Make sure you are getting plenty of high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fats, such as krill oil. Research suggests that as little as 500 mg of krill per day may improve your total cholesterol and triglycerides and will likely increase your HDL cholesterol.
• Replace harmful vegetable oils and synthetic trans fats with healthy fats, such as olive oil, butter, avocado, pastured eggs and coconut oil (remember olive oil should be used cold only, use coconut oil for cooking and baking).
• Include fermented foods in your daily diet. This will not only optimize your intestinal microflora, which will boost your overall immunity, it will also introduce beneficial bacteria into your mouth. Poor oral health is another powerful indicator of increased heart disease risk.
• Optimize your vitamin D levels, ideally through appropriate sun exposure as this will allow your body to also create vitamin D sulfate—another factor that may play a crucial role in preventing the formation of arterial plaque.
• Exercise regularly. Make sure you incorporate high-intensity interval exercises, which also optimize your human growth hormone (HGH) production.
• Avoid smoking or drinking alcohol excessively.
• Be sure to get plenty of high-quality, restorative sleep.
• Practice regular stress-management techniques.

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