Cholesterol Prevention and Treatment Strategies

/Home/Health Conditions/High Cholesterol - Alternative Remedies/High Cholesterol - Prevention

Cholesterol levels are generally very responsive to diet and lifestyle changes. If your cholesterol level requires extra attention (medical or alternative) you need to understand the risks associated with cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Almost 30 million prescriptions are issued each year for cholesterol-lowering drugs. These drugs have not been proven to extend a person's life span. To the contrary, these drugs (lovastatin--known as Mevacor, and gemfibrozil--known as Lopid) have been associated with increased noncardiovascular mortality. In other words, the persons taking these cholesterol-lowering drugs had increased death rates from some other cause (not cardiovascular), and died sooner than they would have if they had not been on cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Why? Probably because this specific category of drugs has been clearly proven in animal studies to be carcinogenic (cancer causing) and toxic to the liver (remember that is the organ that controls LDL levels in the first place). [study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled "Carcinogenicity of Lipid-Lowering Drugs," by Neman and Hully, vol 275 (1996) pgs. 55-60]

This study clearly demonstrated that the risk of carcinogenicity for cholesterol-lowering drugs is far above recently issued FDA guidelines. Although directly associating animal data to humans is an uncertain process, a toxin that is carcinogenic to any tissue form should be considered highly risky.

The following excerpt from the JAMA article provides informative insight into the power of drug companies in the drug approval process:

"How did it happen that cholesterol-lowering drugs were approved by the FDA for long-term use in spite of their animal carcinogenicity? To address the question, we obtained minutes of the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee meetings (under the Freedom of Information Act) at which lovastatin and gemfibrozil--the two most popular cholesterol-lowering drugs--were discussed. ... The only reported discussion of animal carcinogenicity studies at the FDA advisory committee meeting on lovastatin (February 19 and 20, 1987) was by a representative of Merck Sharp & Dohme (makers of the Mevacor brand of lovastatin), who downplayed the importance of the studies."

The minutes from the meeting on gemfibrozil (October 17, 1988) are even more revealing because the committee did discuss carcinogenicity

"Dr. Troendle [deputy director, Division of Metabolism and Endocrine Drug Products for the FDA] noted that gemfibrozil belongs to a class of drugs that has been shown to increase total mortality. It has been shown to have animal carcinogenicity, and she does not believe the FDA has ever approved a drug for long-term prophylactic use that was carcinogenic at such low multiples of the human dose as gemfibrozil."

When asked to vote at the end of the meeting, only three of the nine advisory committee members believed the potential benefit of gemfibrozil outweighed the risk. But the committee's non-approval decision was ignored by the FDA and gemfibrozil was given FDA approval.

So now nearly 30 million prescriptions are given by doctors for cholesterol-lowering drugs that are known to have carcinogenicity, probably the doctors to not know this, they only know that the drugs have FDA approval! Mevacor (lovastatin) is the most popular and Lopid (gemfibrozil) is now second.

The authors of the above JAMA article advised that lipid-lowering drug treatment be avoided except in patients at high risk for an immediate heart attack or stroke.

Yet most doctors don't know this and the health millions of individuals is being compromised. This situation demonstrates how each individual must become educated about their health challenge and their options; and not just rely on the doctor and FDA approved drugs.

With acute LDL levels (i.e. higher than 160) researchers had more significant success with a niacin therapy program than with the drug Lovastatin; better HDL to LDL ratio, and significantly better lipoprotein reduction.

However, niacin does have some side effects, such as flushing. Also, forms of niacin like "sustained-release" and "timed-release" or "slow-release" should be avoided because they are also toxic to the liver--as shown in recent studies published in JAMA [McKenny et al. "A Comparison of the Efficacy and Toxic Effects of Sustained- vs. Immediate-Release Niacin in Hypercholesterolemic Patients." JAMA vol 271 (1994) pgs. 672-677].

Besides niacin, extra vitamin B5, Vitamin C, and Garlic are also components to have in an alternative therapy program.

Food sources of each of these nutrients as well as many others is contained within the discussion of that nutrient in our web area "Pick A Nutrient..." For example, look at niacin (Vitamin B3) and you will see that fish, poultry, eggs, rice and sunflower seeds are good sources of niacin vitamin B3 Or just click here for natural sources of vitamin B5

The most important issue in cholesterol is balance between HDL and LDL and triglycerides. The most important body function to obtain this balance is a healthy liver. Liver health is the result of a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and supplementing with antioxidants and nutrients to decrease the toxic burden the liver has to deal with each day.