Statins and Alzheimer's

Given the strong positive role played by cholesterol, it can only be assumed that statin drugs would increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's. However, the statin industry has been remarkably successful thus far in hiding this painful fact. They have managed to make much of the observation that high cholesterol much earlier in life is associated with an increased risk to Alzheimer's thirty years later. Yet they offer not a single study, not even a retrospective study, to substantiate any claim that actively reducing cholesterol through statin therapy would improve the situation for these people. In fact, most damningly, the statin usage evidence that would answer the question was "unavailable" to the researchers who conducted the seminal study.

Beatrice Golomb is an M.D. Ph.D. who heads up the UCSD Statin Study group, a research team who are actively investigating the risk-benefit balance of statin drugs. She is increasingly becoming convinced that statin drugs should not be recommended for the elderly: that in their case the risks clearly outweigh the benefits. She makes a strong case for this position in an on-line article available here [15]. 

The section on Alzheimer's is particularly compelling, and it points out the pitfalls in relying on previous studies done by the statin industry, where often those who have memory problems as side-effects of the statin drugs are excluded from the study, so that the results end up inappropriately biased in favor of statins. 

In summary, she wrote: "It must be emphasized that the randomized trial evidence has, to date, uniformly failed to show cognitive benefits by statins and has supported no effect or frank and significant harm to cognitive function."

In addition to refusing to take statin therapy, another way in which an individual can improve their odds against Alzheimer's is to consume plenty of dietary fats. 

It seems odd to suddenly switch from a "healthy" low-fat diet to an extremely high fat ketogenic diet, once a diagnosis of Alzheimer's is made. A ketogenic diet consists, ideally, of 88% fat, 10% protein, and 2% carbohydrate [11]. That is to say, it is absurdly high in fat content. It seems much more reasonable to aim for something like 50% fat, 30% protein, and 20% carbohydrate, so as to pro-actively defend against Alzheimer's.

Our nation is currently bracing itself for an onslaught of Alzheimer's, at a time when baby boomers are approaching retirement, and our health care system is already in a crisis of escalating costs and shrinking funds. We can not afford the high cost of caring for the swelling population of Alzheimer's patients that our current practices of low-fat diet and ever expanding statin usage are promoting.

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