Tag: cholesterol

Study – For Lowering Cholesterol, Statins Work, Supplements Don’t

A study comparing a statin drug and six common supplements to placebo shows that only the drug lowers bad cholesterol.

/ November 9, 2022

The Cholesterol Controversy

Why is cholesterol so much more controversial than the other cardiac risk factors? A review of cholesterol’s troubled and contentious history might help us understand where many of the cholesterol controversies originated… and why it’s time to let them pass into history.

/ February 15, 2019

New Study Finds that Statins Prevent Cardiovascular Deaths

A new meta-analysis shows that statin drugs are effective at preventing cardiovascular events and death, especially in patients with a baseline LDL cholesterol >100.

/ April 18, 2018

The Movie “Cholesterol: The Great Bluff” Is an Exercise in Denialism

The movie "Cholesterol: The Great Bluff" claims that we have been lied to: cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease and statins are harmful. It is biased and misleading. The people interviewed in the movie are denialists who don't accept the clear evidence for the role of blood cholesterol levels and the benefits of statins.

/ September 12, 2017

“New vaccine replaces statins?” Not So Fast!

News reports suggest new drugs may replace statins. PSCK9 inhibitors are useful, but only along with statins in high risk patients not controlled on statins alone, or for patients who can't tolerate statins. They're not about to replace statins.

/ September 5, 2017

Statins beat supplements

Red yeast rice supplements have poor quality control and there's no clear evidence they do anything beneficial. So why take it?

/ August 24, 2017

The Skinny on Saturated Fat

The bottom line is that there are trade-offs and complexities when it comes to biology. A high carbohydrate diet is a risk factor for many diseases, and this is highly genetically variable. Types of sugar matter, weight matters, exercise matters, and genetics matter. The same is true of fat.

/ June 28, 2017

A review of Benecol, a plant-stanol margarine

Most nutraceuticals don't really work as advertised. For the most part, Benecol pretty much does. But is it worth it?

/ December 27, 2016

Statins for everyone? Not so fast.

People love the idea of preventive medicine. Preventing a disease, before it occurs, seems intuitively obvious. But when it comes to taking medicine to prevent a disease before it occurs, people tend to be much less comfortable. Not only are there the concerns about the “medicalization” of healthy people, there are good questions about benefits, risks, and costs. Cardiovascular disease will kill...

/ April 7, 2016

Update on Cholesterol and Statins

The consensus of mainstream medicine is that a high blood level of LDL cholesterol is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and that lowering high levels can help with prevention and treatment. Statins have been proven effective for lowering cholesterol levels and for decreasing cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. I recently wrote about the new guidelines for statin therapy. Currently half of...

/ July 7, 2015