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Lipids: A Different Perspective, Part Twp (Cholesterol, Heart Disease, Atherosclerosis, statin)
Related: atherosclerosis, cholesterol, follow the money, follow the self-interest, health, nutrition, statin
re: cholesterol
re: statin
See also: LIPIDS. A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE, Part Three
Crackpot theories about cholesterol and statins and atherosclerosis are still the standard of care (abuse) in modern medicine. One of many runaway trains that enable Modern Wealthcare*.
Here is a perspective that any objective MD capable of critical thinking would have difficulty disagreeing with. Not that most MDs have critical thinking skills, sad but true.
* The repudiation of health and transfer of wealth from patients to “care” givers, while destroying any chance at better health via terrible advice, always treating symptoms and rarely causes, and never a cure. There is nil “health” in healthcare, a bitter pill of a word in its misleading suggestiveness.
LIPIDS. A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE, Part Two
2022-10, by BY DR. BAYNE FRENCH, MD DC. Excerpts, emphasis added.
TG = triglycerides, CVD = cardiovascular disease, CAD = coronary artery disease
It’s a long and sordid tale... The formation of atherosclerosis, like dementia, cancer, diabetes, and numerous other diseases, is an accumulation of metabolic dysfunction. A vastly complicated interplay of environment (our behaviors, diet, level of conditioning, toxin exposure, stress management, sleep quality, etc. x hundreds) with our genetics...
...Understand that your LDL is not a directly measured test but rather a value determined using non-individualized math. HUGE decisions are based on the result of this calculation (like who takes Lipitor for the rest of their lives), all hinging on the assumption that LDL actually matters. Many feel it does not...
...We need to ask ourselves just what in the hell are we trying to do with lab testing anyway! We’re trying to determine if there’s an increased risk of CVD. I dispute that LDL is good at predicting who’s at risk. It is apparent to me that TG, and especially the TG/HDL ratio is a much better marker. Checking lipids in a fasting state does NOT represent how most people spend their time. We are usually in a fed state, unfortunately. So maybe “random” testing of lipids is more suggestive of the usual state of affairs.
...The components of a standard cholesterol panel include total cholesterol, HDL (good chol), LDL (bad chol), triglycerides, and total chol/HDL ratio. This "panel" has been available for many decades. There is tremendous dogma surrounding this lab test. Many still view it as the end-all-be-all for determining heart attack risk. I think it sucks. I've never found it helpful in lowering an individual's risk of heart disease. Most of my patients that have a heart attack are already on cholesterol-lowering medications...
...The ratio of TG/HDL, my favorite, was first proposed by Dr. Gaziano et al... reported that the ratio of triglyceride and HDL cholesterol was the “most powerful” independent predictor of coronary artery disease (CAD, or heart disease). It is, frankly, the only ratio I care about. Specifically, a ratio >4 was a powerful predictor of CAD. For example, a ratio of 4 would be TG of 200 and HDL of 50. Dr. da Luz and others (Clinics. Aug 2008) performed another study showing that the TG/HDL ratio was most strongly associated with the extent of CAD, which means how advanced and widespread heart disease (severity of artery narrowing, and how many arteries in the heart were involved).
...notable finding of this massive study is that the majority of patients hospitalized with heart disease had excellent LDL
...
WIND: early this year, my experience with a cardiologist was so revolting in its lies and uselessness that I will never see that cardiologist again. Here was a guy that-I mean this literally—thorougly abuses his patients by offering absolutely no insight into anything, dispensing lifelong asking no questions about lifestyle, diet, history, activities, etc, etc. IMO, such doctors should be hounded out of the profession as the ignorant health-deniers they are.
The cholesterol hypothesis has become one of many zombie dumpster fires of cunning misinformation fueling Big Pharma and Wealthcare (commonly known as healthcare).
It’s not just about the costs of taking a often dangerous and wholly ineffective statin. It’s about the failure to address dozens of other life-ruining conditions all stemming from metabolic disfunctions and nutrient deficiencies, which in turn stem from atrociously bad advice from the medical profession or simply a failure to address health.
The modern medical profession is condemming hundreds of millions of people to a life of suffering, via absent and/or bad advice and by failing to improve health. Follow the money—it is a feedback loop of treating diseases with “bandaids” and thus encouraging those very diseases—an incredibly powerful business model proven-out now for at least 50 years, with healthcare now consuming vast portions of the nations GDP even as people become sicker and sicker.
Trusting your doctor on cholesterol and statins and heart disease is for children and idiots. They are certifiably incompetent on the subject, making no intellectual effort whatsoever, taking a paint-by-numbers approach based on decades-old and discredited bullshit hypotheses (many, morphing constantly) because the entire field has never had any predictive power whatsoever. Now take your statin and shut up.
I have yet to find (as a patient) a doctor who manifests the slightest trace of objectivity on the subject. Well... that’s not quite right: my solo-practice MD internist finally came around to my point (after some years) that my spike to very high cholesterol was the consequence of my Long COVID (or whatever it is)—the body naturally raising cholesterol when it is battling a problem. Which many doctors are not even aware of.
Half of what a doctor learns in school is out of date by the time the doctor is interning. And half of what is learned interning is already wrong or dogmatic, and out of date a few years later. How many harried doctors have the time to stay up to date? Virtually none. How many doctors working as employees have any incentive to stay up to date vs paint-by-numbers guideliness assembly line “next patient please”, where each patient gets 30 minutes a year to cover a dozen different health problems? Cholesterol is only one of hundreds of areas that these principles apply.
The future is crowdsourcing better health. No single doctor can do it on his/her own; that’s impossible.
