Pretty sure I convinced someone to stop taking statins yesterday - they said they wouldn't take it any more (they were prescribed it just because they have diabetes - no cholesterol issues at all).

One down - how many more to go?

I wish I could convince my MIL to stop giving my FIL his statin. He's been diagnosed with alzheimers since starting taking it, and he's declining rapidly - I wonder if the statin is contributing.

Lee

I feel like the next several years of my life are going to be spent trying to convince people not to take statins. My mother is 61, very active, eats a healthy (low carb) diet (generally), and is a healthy weight, yet her doctor wanted to put her on statins. In my opinion, that is criminal. Why risk ruining the health of a perfectly healthy person for no benefit whatsoever? And yes, I say that with conviction. No one has shown that lowering cholesterol reduces the risk of death.

It is indeed criminal, apparently they didn't see this meta-analysis.

Thanks, Jay. Honestly, I am at the point where I don't think people should even get cholesterol tests anymore. Personally, I don't ever go to the doctor to get "blood work." I know people think I am nuts, but since I am not ever going to eat a high-carb, low-fat diet, or take a statin drug, I don't see the point in wasting the doctor's and my time.

As far as I can tell, running these test on everyone has only made us LESS healthy. Why? Well, if you get "bad" results, then you are put on an inflammatory diet and given statins.

Also, no one has proven that high cholesterol levels increase risk of early death.

VLDL, triglycerides, and hs-CRP are all I care about on my panel. The rest are mostly irrelevant. And low fat/high carb destroys your lipid panel, so doctors have an ever-so-nice way of telling you "you're sick, and you need to be on statins."

I agree, the constant bombarding of being told to eat "healthy whole grains" which are 99% of the time sweetened with HFCS, and have tons of seed oils in them. How I despise the whole grain scam.

I think familial hypercholesterolemia patients are used as "that's why cholesterol is bad." But as almost all die of blood clotting issues more often than not, and few from heart attack, that doesn't say much.

I would certainly never get bloodowork done just for the sake of the numbers alone, as I would also never take statins or eat a high-carb/low-fat diet. But high cholesterol *is* a marker for impaired thyroid function, and if your thyroid is not functioning properly that can cause all sorts of issues! I am starting a new treatment for thyroid tomorrow and will have a full blood panel done is a few weeks, and then again some months later - with the hope that it many indicate if the new treatment is helping things.