Exercise is more protective than statins....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 12-6-2012

Medical News Today had this recently:

“Statins Used For Cholesterol Control Together With Physical Fitness Reduce Death 

Rate

http://mnt.to/a/49wX

But here is the key quote in that article:

"Surprisingly, the study revealed that even people with dyslipidaemia who do not take statins, but are physically fit, were about half as likely to expire from any cause during the median 10-year follow up, than those who were taking statins, but were not physically healthy."

This study leaves out that the very exercise that is most beneficial in heart protection, fat loss, and preventing high blood sugar -- such as interval cardio and progressive strength training, tends to seriously HARM people who are taking statins to lower their LDL and that only people who have a certain genetic pattern get much heart attack protection from statins.

Inadvertently I suspect, these researchers proved that exercise alone reduced death rates a lot in people with high LDL who took nothing to lower the LDL directly.

Since the exercise is more protective by actual test, that suggests to me that “evidence based medicine” shows that prescribing statins is second best advice or worse!

They also left out that, for people taking statins, I believe I saw there are studies that show ZERO reduction in death rates.  This is even more the case for the majority of people who do NOT have the genes that the people do -- who statins do help.

Then they leave out that there are 6 successful and safe methods to lower LDL without statins and -- in addition to regular exercise.

And one of those, taking niacin, does show a reduction in death rates!  Even better, taking just one 300 mg tablet once after your two largest meals each day minimizes the flush, is thought to be safe, and DOES help lower LDL.  And, like exercise, taking niacin also boosts HDL and lowers triglycerides.

The second is taking sterol supplements.  Natrol’s cholesterol balance that I take is quite inexpensive.  And as a natural food component sterols are safe to take!

The third is eating foods high in soluble fiber such as beans and lentils, apples and applesauce, oatmeal, and many vegetables.

The fourth is completely avoiding eating ANY foods containing hydrogenated oils even in small amounts.  This avoids heart disease by not just lowering LDL but avoiding the hydrogenated oils making the LDL you already have directly cause heart disease! 

The fifth which most smokers don’t know about is to completely avoid exposure to tobacco smoke.  This lowers LDL, prevents heart disease in other ways such as preventing the plaque build up in your blood vessels.  AND, it avoids having tobacco smoke trigger heart attacks you would otherwise have escaped -- which we now know both smoking and second hand smoke do!

The sixth is to take a turmeric or curcumin supplement daily. I found after I began doing this my LDL went down! And then after that, I found from Dr Dean Ornish that this was a known effect.  Doing so along with some black pepper each day helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease and cancer!  (I’d begun it to avoid Alzheimer’s disease.  So having my LDL, which was already low, go down too was a nice surprise!) 

Does this mean a doctor who prescribes statins to lower your LDL levels and nothing else and does NOT do the $150 genetic test first under-informed?

Unfortunately it does.

But although there are some preventive medicine doctors and some of the better informed cardiologists who know this information, at this writing, an unfortunately large percentage of most other doctors do NOT know this information.