Several years ago I asked my cardiologist that question and his response was, when he was a young doctor before statins he would see patients with high cholesterol and privately think these folks would probably not need another appointment next year..
Fast forward to present and the use of statins
and he said those same type of patients are living normal life spans thanks to the use of statins..The choice is yours.
I initially assumed you were trolling, until I remembered that I’ve seen a lot of people saying really stupid things and believing the most obvious nonsence. Hence, my answer below.
A simple google search will give you multiple excellent high-quality studies disproving your statement. You mentioned Kilmer McCully but you are misinterpreting what he said.
He insisted that artery clogging wasn’t just about cholesterol. He did not say cholesterol could be ignored, and I don’t think he said statins made no difference – he more likely said that even if statins did lower cholesterol and disease risk, homocysteine’s role was much more important.
He was right, but this could not be shown at the time therefore no-one supported his hypothesis. At the same time there was already plenty of evidence the efficacy of statins in lowering cardiovascular risk – that evidence base continues to grow and is pretty much conclusive. We understand how statins work, we know they lower cholesterol and we know that they significantly lower cardiovascular risk.
We now also know that there is probably a better way to reduce atherosclerosis than by targeting cholesterol. However, until the methods to do so are cut and dried and repeatable we should keep using statins.
You are misreading history! First, Dr. McCully, who was in his 90’s when he died recently, did his research many years ago. We have learned a lot since then! Statin safety and efficacy have been demonstrated in literally thousands of studies. It is really very simple: the LDL fraction of cholesterol is the major component of atherosclerotic plaques; the lower its value in blood, the less likely you are to have a heart attack; statins lower LDL.
The drugs have been around for nearly a half century now so that long term outcomes are available: people on statins live longer, have less heart disease, less dementia, and (surprisingly) have less cancer. Side effects are so trivial that there have been serious proposals to make them available without a prescription.
Dr. McCully showed that elevated levels of the amino acid homocysteine also correlate with heart disease, but the most common reason for elevated homocysteine is a deficiency of B vitamins, something that is rare in developed countries and usually is easy to correct with a multivitamin pill. Believe what you want but I will continue to take my statin!
