Re: Statins
You might want to read this article:
"Prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined"
Monday, September 24, 2012 by: Sherry Baker, Health Sciences Editor
The dramatic increase in mortality and overdoses from prescription drugs is largely due to a vastly increased use of these drugs by doctors. In fact, between 1999 and 2010, the sales of these Big Pharma, highly addictive and potentially killer drugs increased four-fold.
And while it is a terrible and sobering fact that, according to the CDC, about 15,000 Americans die from overdosing on prescription painkillers each year, let's put this tragedy in the larger perspective of the ongoing Big Pharma drug nightmare. The truth is, overdose deaths from painkillers are not the biggest drug problem in the US. Consider that 100,000 Americans die each year from their prescriptions due to known side-effects -- not because the doctor made a mistake and prescribed the wrong drug, or the pharmacist made a mistake in filling the prescription, or the patient accidentally took too much or overdosed on purpose.
Ask your doctor to break down your cholesterol readings and ask what part of the cholesterol is a bit high. (your doctor is heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry to give you chemical pills).
What is high? High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), or Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) or your triglrrides?
HDL is often referred to as our good cholesterol, where as LDL is supposed to be bad for us. There is a lot of controversy over cholesterol, some doctors (not on the NHS) say that it is more dangerous to have low cholesterol than it is to have high cholesterol.
Our body needs good cholesterol your brain and heart is surrounded by good cholesterol.
Mike Adams suggests:
A: Despite what you may have seen on commercials, cholesterol readings are so much more than just a number pinned to your chest.
In fact, cholesterol readings are a bunch of numbers: your overall cholesterol, your LDL (bad cholesterol), your HDL (good cholesterol), your triglycerides and the all-important ratio of good-to-bad cholesterol.
Doctors look at all of these numbers as well as other risk factors (whether you're diabetic, family history, age, gender) before deciding to put you on medication.
"Looking at all these things, your doctor will come up with an ideal cholesterol treatment for you," says Dr. Srinivasan Raghavan, a specialist in geriatric medicine at St. Anthony's Medical Center.
First, do regular aerobic exercise - 30 to 45 minutes most days of the week.
Make sure less than 30 percent of your calories come from fat and less than 10 percent come from saturated fat (found in butter).
Eat two servings of omega-3-rich fish per week.
A recent study published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" shows that eating certain foods can lower your cholesterol levels just as well as taking statin drugs.
This is the second study we've seen revealing that certain foods are as effective, or even more effective, than prescription drugs in regulating biochemical markers such as cholesterol levels or in treating conditions such as chronic depression. In this particular study, researchers found that foods such as soy protein, tofu, various other soy products, plus almonds and cereal fiber, as well as plant sterols, can lower total cholesterol and especially LDL cholesterol, better than statin drugs.