In Australia the biggest selling medications are cholesterol lowering medications known as statins, brand names of these include Lipitor, Pravachol and Zocor. These medications show very little benefit (less than 1%) with a high number of negative side effects, and they have by and large failed to halt the epidemic of cardiovascular disease. Large numbers of people in drug treatment groups after significant cholesterol lowering continue to have heart attacks and strokes.
Leading nutritional biochemists set the optimum range for total cholesterol between 5 and 5.5 but many doctors are taking their patients well below this level with serious side effects. Statins are indeed useful for reducing dangerously high cholesterol levels but we have achieved this with natural medicine, diet and lifestyle at the clinic time and time again.
These statin drugs interfere with important biochemical pathways in the body, one of these being that they block Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10).
CoQ10 is important for fuelling the energy production cycle in the body to keep our muscles working optimally, our heart is one muscle to we want to keep working well even while we sleep! CoQ10 is a powerful antioxidant that protects us from atherosclerosis, the oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol, poor blood clotting as well as lowering blood pressure. So if you are going to continue to take statin medications you need to at least be taking a CoQ10 supplement in conjunction.
Many statin users who exercise experience muscle fatigue, weakness, aches and cramping due to muscle toxicity caused by these drugs. We all need exercise because of its many health benefits but also for all the wonderful benefits for the cardiovascular system.
Our hormones are built from cholesterol and in situations where we have lowered hormones (e.g. DHEA, testosterone or progesterone) the body then makes more of its own cholesterol trying to give the body what it needs to build more of the deficient hormone. Lowered hormones may be the primary cause for high cholesterol this can be assessed at the Naturopathic Care clinic. Then when cholesterol is lowered it can cause many problems associated with hormonal imbalance, including depression, mood swings, adrenal fatigue, sore breasts and prostate cancer to name a few.
Cholesterol is needed by the brain so we find that many statin users experience brain fatigue, memory loss, amnesia and depression.
Many healthy safe alternatives exist for lowering cholesterol with a handful of almonds getting better results than statins…come in and speak to myself or Ally about working with your doctor to get you off these medications or put you on a healthy natural treatment program for lowering your cholesterol and achieving optimal health and wellness.
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