If you didn’t think the cholesterol conspiracy was a load of hooey created by drug manufacturers, maybe this will change your mind.
Crestor — that dangerous cholesterol-lowering drug — has now been approved for people who DON’T have high cholesterol.
You read that right — a cholesterol drug… for people without cholesterol problems!
If the circus clowns who run the FDA do what’s expected and rubber-stamp the decision, AstraZeneca will be able to market Crestor to healthy Americans with high levels of a protein linked to inflammation.
I suppose I should be gratified since I’ve been saying for decades that inflammation, and not “high” cholesterol, is the real problem when it comes to heart disease. And one good indicator of inflammation levels is something called C-reactive protein, or CRP for short.
The higher the CRP creeps, the greater the inflammation… and the greater your risk for heart disease. The mainstream had no interest in exploring this link — until some studies found that statins may lower CRP levels along with cholesterol.
Now that they have a drug to sell, they’re suddenly interested. But you don’t need these meds for cholesterol or CRP, and here’s why:
First, forget cholesterol altogether — I rarely tested for it when I was in practice. If it’s somewhere between 200 and 300 and you’re on a healthy low-carb diet, you’re doing fine.
Second, you can easily reduce your CRP levels and lower your risk for inflammation without meds. You just need some vitamin C — the exact dose will depend on your individual needs, but between 2 and 6 grams per day should do the trick for most people who are eating right.
Whatever you do, don’t turn to statins. These meds have been linked to debilitating muscle pain and weakness as well as liver and kidney damage. Statin users also have an increased risk for diabetes.
In fact, the AstraZeneca-sponsored JUPITER study that so impressed the FDA panel even found that Crestor patients had a 27 percent higher risk of diabetes than patients who took a placebo.
