Have you, or someone you know, succumbed to Merck's advertisements, and become "One Less"? Has your daughter's pediatrician bullied you into agreeing to have her vaccinated with Gardasil, with the promise that it will prevent her from getting cervical cancer? If so, were you told of the myriad of side effects (including death and permanent disability) or given the "big picture" statistics about the vaccine? Have you heard that the CDC has recently recommended that this vaccination program be expanded to include boys, even though they have no cervix and it may only save a few homosexual males from anal cancer sometime in the future? Modern medicine, BigPharma, government policymakers, and the media are ignoring the facts about this dangerous vaccine, so the statistics need to be brought to light.
Research today tells us that it is likely that cervical cancer, as well as some oral and anal cancers, are induced by infections with Human Papilloma Virus, or HPV. Does that mean we are 100% positive this is true? No, it is simply our best theory to date. We may find out in the future that this theory was just that, and had no basis in true fact; we simply lacked the scientific knowledge to make a better assumption. Until we can prove definitively that HPV is the only cause of cervical cancer, we must admit we are working on theories and assumptions, and act accordingly, not blindly making treatment or prevention recommendations without careful study and long term follow up. Unfortunately, modern medicine thinks otherwise.
HPV is not just one virus. It is a family that includes over 100 viruses, of which only two, HPV-16 and HPV-18, are included in the Gardasil vaccine. There are other HPV strains that probably induce cervical cancer. We know 30% of cervical cancer victims have neither HPV-16 nor HPV-18, but we don't know what it was that caused the cancer. It may be other strains of HPV, or something besides HPV altogether. This group of viruses, which also causes genital warts, is contracted strictly through skin to skin contact; most commonly vaginal, oral, or anal sex. While rates of infection are lower with condom use, any time skin to skin contact is the method of transmission, by definition, we enter the realm of "no such thing as safe sex" (see Lenthen Your Life #2). Research has shown us that over 90% of HPV infections are dispatched by the immune system within two years, leaving only a small number that could possibly go on to induce cancers. Of those that remain, it seems to take 10-15, and maybe as many as 20, years for that induction to occur, and cervical cancer to appear.
While you wouldn't know it by the scare tactics used by Merck, the government, and most doctors, cervical cancer in the US is fairly uncommon. According to the National Cancer Institute, it is estimated that in 2011, less than 13,000 women will be diagnosed with the condition, and just over 4000 will die. I realize 4000 deaths is still a big deal, but when looking at the overall picture, it isn't really. When we compare cancer diagnoses with deaths, a 3.25:1 ratio is pretty good. Compared to cancers like pancreatic, lung, or liver, whose ratios are closer to 1.5:1 or even 1.1:1, we do a pretty good job of treating this cancer. More often than not, those that are lost are not getting regular PAP smears, which is the screening test used for this cancer. Women getting regular PAPs have a much higher rate of survival than those that don't. Of those that do develop cervical cancer, less than 15% will be under 34 years of age, and less than 20% will be over the age of 65. That leaves the vast majority (65%+) of cervical cancer diagnoses going to women between the ages of 35 and 65. The median age at diagnoses is currently 48. This lends credence to the concept that it takes a long time for HPV to be around before it induces cancer, but starts putting holes in the theory of Gardasil protection.
If we look at the median age of 48, and take the longest latent stage of 20 years, we have an infection of the average woman with cervical cancer happening when she's 28. Most likely, the infection was closer to when she was 35, based on the more conservative (and more widely accepted) latent period. It makes sense, then, to vaccinate girls when they are 11-13, then, since they will have immunity from this infection later on, right? Not so fast. What Merck isn't making widely known is that Gardasil, even after 3 doses at a cost of more than $360, will more than likely only last for five years. While they are looking into a "booster" shot, if released, it may be nothing more than another dose of the original vaccine, at another $120+. If it doesn't last beyond the teenage years, why are we being bullied into vaccinating millions of adolescent girls? Call me cynical, but I don't think you're going to get the average 25 year old woman to take a vaccine voluntarily for something she may develop twenty years on down the road. I believe medicine and the government know that they can convince parents to do just about anything if they scare them with a properly executed marketing plan.
Looking closer at the statistics, just how many, then, will Gardasil potentially save? Taking the consensus numbers, infections that occur before the age of 20 will possibly be prevented, putting those saved in the under 35 age group. That means we could potentially prevent about 1800 cases of cervical cancer per year, and reduce deaths by 205 per year. That's assuming only HPV-16 and HPV-18 cause the cancer (which we know only account for 70%) and they wouldn't have fought any of them off by themselves (of which over 90% are). The math gives us a 0.68% chance that a girl born today will develop cervical cancer in her lifetime. With vaccination, the risk is reduced to 0.48%, meaning we have to vaccinate 210 girls to save one from getting cancer (not dying, just developing). That gives us a vaccination cost of about $75,000 per one cancer prevented, assuming lifelong protection (which is doesn't), and not including the doctors' fees associated with the services (that brings it to about $210,000). Since we do a pretty good job in the US at early detection and treatment of this cancer, our current treatment cost ranges from $4,000 to $45,000 per case.
The statistics on Gardasil make little sense for a widespread vaccination program, but what makes even less is when we look at what it is doing to our precious teenage girls. While some media outlets have talked a little about the risks associated with the vaccine, few, if any, have given specific numbers. Reported side effects of the vaccine include Bell's Palsy (facial paralysis), Guillan Barre Syndrome (autoimmune condition attacking your nerves), seizures, blood clotting disorders, cardiac dysfunction (including cardiac arrest), miscarriages and fetal abnormalities, cervical dysplasia and cancers (yes, it increases the other 30%) and even death. In its 4 1/2 years since its release in June of 2006, there were almost 13,000 adverse reactions directly attributed to Gardasil, including 8,600 emergency room visits, 2,000 hospitalizations, and 90 deaths (2006-2010, 2011 statistics not yet available). If Gardasil holds true to the norm of only 10% of adverse reactions from medications and vaccinations being reported, this is a terrible cost our daughters are paying, all so Merck can make billions of dollars a year selling a vaccine that is marginally effective, at best. And now, the CDC wants us to expose our boys to the same risks, for even less potential benefit.
Gardasil is another example of government and medicine putting BigPharma's bottom line above the best interest of the people. I can't understand how, in the face of the real statistics, doctors can continue to recommend this vaccine. Cervical cancer prevention is simple: annual PAP smears, correct HPV education, and improving our immune system's defense. While the annual PAP smears are still being recommended, it is unfortunate that mainstream America isn't being given correct information to have a frank discussion with their kids about sex (again, see Lenthen Your Life #2). Arming yourself with medical statistics that doctors cannot refute is the only way to avoid the dogmatic bullying happening in pediatricians' offices today. Don't trust anyone, even me, with your health; seek the truth and take responsibility for yourself and your family.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Talk About Gall!
I always find it frustrating when modern medical practices "fix" a patient, only to set them up for serious problems on down the road that they then again, must "fix", since they didn't explain and won't admit the consequences of their original "fix". This is especially true for patients who have had their gallbladder removed.
While it doesn't always hold true, the classic patient who has gall bladder problems, and eventually ends up with it being removed, fits into the four F's: fat, female, fertile, forty. They are usually forty plus year old women who are still menstruating that are overweight. In my experience, it seems these demographics are changing. I am seeing the age group become younger, where it is often women in their twenties or even teens who are developing problems with their gallbladder.
What needs to be understood, is that with few exceptions, gallbladder problems are a combination of issues with fat digestion and liver congestion. It is the job of the liver to produce bile, which is a conglomeration of fat soluble toxin and hormone byproducts, cholesterol, and bile acids. It is put into the gallbladder for storage and concentration until a significant amount of fat is eaten, at which time the gallbladder contracts and squeezes the bile into the digestive tract. When the liver is not functioning correctly or is congested with toxic buildup (we'll talk more about this in a later blog), the bile will not be made properly, and will have components that are more likely to form stones or are irritating to the gallbladder. These patients will also often have sex hormone alterations such as heavy menstrual cycles, PMS, or dysmenorrhea. They may also be prone to mood fluctuations, depression, or stress intolerance due to the wide reaching effects of sex hormones on the body. When fat is eaten, it stimulates the gallbladder to empty its contents into the digestive tract. The intensity of the signal to dump bile is determined by the amount of fat eaten. A diet that fluctuates between high and low fat, or is always low fat, creates abnormal feedback to the gallbladder, leading to impaired fat digestion.
Regardless of how the patient developed gallbladder dysfunction, medicine's dominant answer is "let's just take it out, you can live without it". And so, the downward health spiral begins; the patient loses their gallbladder, and is sent home without being given the knowledge that they now are set up for serious problems on down the road, while the original problem is never investigated, found, and addressed. Is the gallbladder a "vital" organ? No, you can live without it. You can't, however, be truly healthy without it if you aren't providing your body with bile replacement therapy.
Medicine looks at gallbladder removal as common and with minimal consequence to the patient, especially in today's world of laparoscopic surgery. They seem to feel that as long as they reconnect the common bile duct to the small intestine, the bile will continue to be made, put into the small intestine, and the patient will be fine. While this may make some sense on the surface, when you really look at how things are supposed to work, we again see that medicine is content to leave patients sick and on the road to other illness, as long as they can fix or hide today's symptom.
Bile is an integral part of our overall health. Without the proper amount of bile at the right time, we cannot digest and absorb fats or the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, or K. Medicine purports that as long as we have bile in the intestine, that's good enough. This is similar to the dishwasher saying that as long as they put soap in the sink sometime, they'll be able to clean that greasy skillet. Does it matter that the dish soap has been dripping into the sink for the past few hours, and most of it has gone down the drain, just as the bile does when there is no reservoir, i.e. gallbladder? Can you clean that greasy skillet if you only have a few drops of soap? Probably not very well. And, if there is no grease to be "cut" by the soap, what is the soap doing as it goes down the drain? Does it have any potential to do damage to the drain? Soap doesn't, but bile can.
Bile is our fat emulsifier, just like soap. It allows us to take fats and put them into a form that can combine with water so it can be absorbed. With only small amounts of bile when fat is present in the small intestine, fat often passes on through, leaving the patient with foul smelling stools that are tan or grey colored, and the patient feels bloated or gassy with any amount of fat eaten. Along with the fat itself not being made ready for proper absorption is the issue of vitamins A, D, E, and K. Vitamin A is necessary for eye and liver function, as well as being an antioxidant. Vitamin D has so many different functions in the body that it would take a book to explain it all, but just a few things include bone health, immune function, brain function, and cancer prevention. Vitamin E is our premier antioxidant for fat soluble toxins, and Vitamin K is necessary for not only normal blood clotting, but is part of how calcium gets into our bones. When the gallbladder is removed and the bile isn't where it needs to be when it needs to be there, we become deficient in all of these vitamins, and our health begins to slowly degrade.
In addition to the vitamins that are left to be passed along, the normal fats aren't processed correctly either. While some would welcome less fat entering their body (and medicine has drugs which do exactly that), this causes problems as well. Our brain is 60-65% fat. Our stress and sex hormones are all fat based. Your immune system relies on fat based molecules to communicate. Without the right fats, our body doesn't work well either. Eventually, we end up with higher rates of osteoporosis, cancers, brain dysfunction like depression and anxiety, dry cracked skin, increased risk of infections, and a whole host of other abnormal function, just because we removed a simple little bladder, and didn't replace its function.
So what happens to the bile that is being dumped down the drain? Any hunter will tell you that bile is extremely damaging to any tissue it touches. They are very careful when working around this little sac due to its caustic contents. Without fat to mix with and emulsify, it continues down the digestive tract, looking for things to emulsify on its way. What it may find is that the lining of the intestine can be a ripe target. It can irritate the lining as it passes along, which can create other digestive problems. The good bacteria in our intestines are also at risk of being attacked, which can leave the gut wide open to opportunistic bacteria and yeast that create a whole host of other issues.
To say the least, removing the gallbladder is a serious long term health risk. If left uneducated, the patient is walking down a path of slowly degrading health that could have been prevented with a simple bile replacement. Easy and relatively inexpensive, we can save these patients from years of suffering and putting huge a drain on health care dollars, by adding bile in supplemental form when they eat any amount of fat once their gallbladder is gone. Will medicine recommend this? They haven't yet, and I have a hard time believing it will happen any time soon. That means it is up to those of us who are working to help patients achieve real health to educate the population so they can take action on their own.
Without a gallbladder, fat and fat soluble vitamins become problematic for the patient, plain and simple. Modern medicine needs to wake up and realize what they are dooming these patients to in the future; a life of slowly degrading health that could be easily remedied. Talk about gall!
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
While it doesn't always hold true, the classic patient who has gall bladder problems, and eventually ends up with it being removed, fits into the four F's: fat, female, fertile, forty. They are usually forty plus year old women who are still menstruating that are overweight. In my experience, it seems these demographics are changing. I am seeing the age group become younger, where it is often women in their twenties or even teens who are developing problems with their gallbladder.
What needs to be understood, is that with few exceptions, gallbladder problems are a combination of issues with fat digestion and liver congestion. It is the job of the liver to produce bile, which is a conglomeration of fat soluble toxin and hormone byproducts, cholesterol, and bile acids. It is put into the gallbladder for storage and concentration until a significant amount of fat is eaten, at which time the gallbladder contracts and squeezes the bile into the digestive tract. When the liver is not functioning correctly or is congested with toxic buildup (we'll talk more about this in a later blog), the bile will not be made properly, and will have components that are more likely to form stones or are irritating to the gallbladder. These patients will also often have sex hormone alterations such as heavy menstrual cycles, PMS, or dysmenorrhea. They may also be prone to mood fluctuations, depression, or stress intolerance due to the wide reaching effects of sex hormones on the body. When fat is eaten, it stimulates the gallbladder to empty its contents into the digestive tract. The intensity of the signal to dump bile is determined by the amount of fat eaten. A diet that fluctuates between high and low fat, or is always low fat, creates abnormal feedback to the gallbladder, leading to impaired fat digestion.
Regardless of how the patient developed gallbladder dysfunction, medicine's dominant answer is "let's just take it out, you can live without it". And so, the downward health spiral begins; the patient loses their gallbladder, and is sent home without being given the knowledge that they now are set up for serious problems on down the road, while the original problem is never investigated, found, and addressed. Is the gallbladder a "vital" organ? No, you can live without it. You can't, however, be truly healthy without it if you aren't providing your body with bile replacement therapy.
Medicine looks at gallbladder removal as common and with minimal consequence to the patient, especially in today's world of laparoscopic surgery. They seem to feel that as long as they reconnect the common bile duct to the small intestine, the bile will continue to be made, put into the small intestine, and the patient will be fine. While this may make some sense on the surface, when you really look at how things are supposed to work, we again see that medicine is content to leave patients sick and on the road to other illness, as long as they can fix or hide today's symptom.
Bile is an integral part of our overall health. Without the proper amount of bile at the right time, we cannot digest and absorb fats or the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, or K. Medicine purports that as long as we have bile in the intestine, that's good enough. This is similar to the dishwasher saying that as long as they put soap in the sink sometime, they'll be able to clean that greasy skillet. Does it matter that the dish soap has been dripping into the sink for the past few hours, and most of it has gone down the drain, just as the bile does when there is no reservoir, i.e. gallbladder? Can you clean that greasy skillet if you only have a few drops of soap? Probably not very well. And, if there is no grease to be "cut" by the soap, what is the soap doing as it goes down the drain? Does it have any potential to do damage to the drain? Soap doesn't, but bile can.
Bile is our fat emulsifier, just like soap. It allows us to take fats and put them into a form that can combine with water so it can be absorbed. With only small amounts of bile when fat is present in the small intestine, fat often passes on through, leaving the patient with foul smelling stools that are tan or grey colored, and the patient feels bloated or gassy with any amount of fat eaten. Along with the fat itself not being made ready for proper absorption is the issue of vitamins A, D, E, and K. Vitamin A is necessary for eye and liver function, as well as being an antioxidant. Vitamin D has so many different functions in the body that it would take a book to explain it all, but just a few things include bone health, immune function, brain function, and cancer prevention. Vitamin E is our premier antioxidant for fat soluble toxins, and Vitamin K is necessary for not only normal blood clotting, but is part of how calcium gets into our bones. When the gallbladder is removed and the bile isn't where it needs to be when it needs to be there, we become deficient in all of these vitamins, and our health begins to slowly degrade.
In addition to the vitamins that are left to be passed along, the normal fats aren't processed correctly either. While some would welcome less fat entering their body (and medicine has drugs which do exactly that), this causes problems as well. Our brain is 60-65% fat. Our stress and sex hormones are all fat based. Your immune system relies on fat based molecules to communicate. Without the right fats, our body doesn't work well either. Eventually, we end up with higher rates of osteoporosis, cancers, brain dysfunction like depression and anxiety, dry cracked skin, increased risk of infections, and a whole host of other abnormal function, just because we removed a simple little bladder, and didn't replace its function.
So what happens to the bile that is being dumped down the drain? Any hunter will tell you that bile is extremely damaging to any tissue it touches. They are very careful when working around this little sac due to its caustic contents. Without fat to mix with and emulsify, it continues down the digestive tract, looking for things to emulsify on its way. What it may find is that the lining of the intestine can be a ripe target. It can irritate the lining as it passes along, which can create other digestive problems. The good bacteria in our intestines are also at risk of being attacked, which can leave the gut wide open to opportunistic bacteria and yeast that create a whole host of other issues.
To say the least, removing the gallbladder is a serious long term health risk. If left uneducated, the patient is walking down a path of slowly degrading health that could have been prevented with a simple bile replacement. Easy and relatively inexpensive, we can save these patients from years of suffering and putting huge a drain on health care dollars, by adding bile in supplemental form when they eat any amount of fat once their gallbladder is gone. Will medicine recommend this? They haven't yet, and I have a hard time believing it will happen any time soon. That means it is up to those of us who are working to help patients achieve real health to educate the population so they can take action on their own.
Without a gallbladder, fat and fat soluble vitamins become problematic for the patient, plain and simple. Modern medicine needs to wake up and realize what they are dooming these patients to in the future; a life of slowly degrading health that could be easily remedied. Talk about gall!
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
It's Time to Take the Blinders Off
For decades, modern medicine has promoted the link between higher cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease. We've been hounded by doctors, government, and media to get our cholesterol down or die of a heart attack. With all the hype, it must be true, right? The research must be telling us that low cholesterol levels increase our lifespan, and reduce our risk of dying. At least that's what we're led to believe. In fact, for years, the research has been telling us the opposite, but medicine has put the blinders on, and you don't hear about the research that flies in the face of what is today's "standard practice".
An article was published in September of this year that once again told us modern medicine's recommendations about cholesterol are not only unfounded, but in the case of women, totally backwards. The article followed 52,087 Norwegians from 1997-2007. It looked at not only cardiovascular disease, but overall mortality. When you really think about the purpose of following doctor's orders, isn't really about prolonging your life? If your doctor is telling you to do something that will reduce the risk of one condition, but increase your risk of getting another, which is just as bad, is that good medicine? In western medicine, we've focused intently on heart disease, since it is the #1 killer, and has been for most of the past century. But if the advice of modern medicine in reducing heart disease actually makes you more prone to cancer or stroke, is that good advice? I'd argue that trading a heart attack for a stroke or cancer isn't good medicine. We should be taking the blinders off so we can look at the whole body, and not break it into individual parts.
The study compared the cholesterol levels and other cardiovascular risk factors of the participants with the death rates. Of course they saw that cigarette smoking and high blood pressure were direct links to cardiovascular disease and a shorter life span. In contrast, the results for cholesterol should have blown the top off conventional medicine's view of "standard of care", but for some reason it hasn't been reported yet. If you are a woman, your risk of dying actually goes down as your cholesterol goes up, at least to 270. That's right, as a woman, the higher the cholesterol, the longer they live. This is similar to what I had written about in Medicine is Sexist, where I discussed the POSCH study showing that cholesterol lowering medications were worthless for women. Here is further proof that we are not only over medicating women in America, but we are actually reducing their life expectancy through false medical dogma.
With men and cholesterol, the issue is a little more complicated. It seems there is a "U"-shaped curve in regards to death rates versus cholesterol. While modern medicine would expect this curve to be in the low 100's, it is actually in the low 200's. As you can see in the graph below, the highest average death risk for both men and women was actually in those that had the lowest cholesterol. Medicine's concept is not only flawed, but it is raising the risks of everyone dying if their cholesterol is artificially lowered beyond 200.
Why would modern medicine do this? Why would they bully patients into going on medications to lower their cholesterol, when research has repeatedly told us it is unhealthy? Unfortunately, I'd say we have to follow the money. In 2010, between just Lipitor and Crestor, Americas spent $10 billion. This doesn't take into account the other brand name and generic medications that lower cholesterol, nor the visits to general practitioners or cardiologists to keep these prescriptions up to date. When you then add in the print, radio, TV, and internet advertisements that drug companies are paying to media outlets to promote their products, is it any wonder that research that places the status quo in doubt is ignored? To say that keeping the public focused on lowering their cholesterol is an industry that makes tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars a year is not outlandish. If we were to take this cost out of health care, what would happen? Would we see the rise in insurance rates begin to slow, or even drop some? That may be too much to expect, but we would see people living longer.
Does that mean that we should all forget about cholesterol and let it get as high as it can? The research doesn't tell us that. For men at least, it doesn't appear that way. It looks like we should try to keep it between 195 and 230, and for women, up into the high 200's looks fine. Unfortunately, the research didn't look at cholesterol type or particle size, and that's what the latest research is telling us is really the big deal.
For many years, medicine has been looking not only at total cholesterol, but also at HDL, LDL, and VLDL. They've considered these the "good" (HDL), "bad" (LDL), and "ugly" (VLDL) of cholesterol. Categorizing them as good, bad, and ugly is rudimentary when we look at health impacts, since in each of these categories, we can also look at particle size, and that seems to be the most important. Generally, having high HDL is good, but there are types of HDL that are also bad for us. LDL is considered bad, but there are some that are worse than others. Right now, getting your cholesterol checked, and getting only total, HDL, and LDL is like 15 years ago only getting the total. It really doesn't tell us a whole lot yet, because we're not looking closely enough.
Is cholesterol something we should be concerned about? Yes, we probably should, but not in the way modern medicine has bullied us into believing. Women have little to worry about, unless it it too low. Men seem to have a range that is best, but I believe that when we do the research and look at particle size, that will break down further. Having a total cholesterol of 250 with an HDL of 100 is more than likely just fine. Having a total of 220 with an HDL of 30 is far from safe. When we routinely start looking at sub-fractions, we'll see things that tell us a whole lot more.
It's unfortunate that quality research like this is ignored by the media and modern medicine right now. As the evidence continues to pile against current recommendations, eventually, the tide will turn and patients will be told the truth: BigPharma, modern medicine, the government, and the media have played a hoax on the public to the tune of hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, and accelerated the death of millions. In the mean time, the best you can do is be educated and armed with research, so you can take control of your own healthcare. For more information on the study, click on the link below.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
"Is the use of cholesterol in mortality risk algorithms in clinical guidelines valid? Ten years prospective data from the Norwegian HUNT 2 study" Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; Sept 25, 2011.
An article was published in September of this year that once again told us modern medicine's recommendations about cholesterol are not only unfounded, but in the case of women, totally backwards. The article followed 52,087 Norwegians from 1997-2007. It looked at not only cardiovascular disease, but overall mortality. When you really think about the purpose of following doctor's orders, isn't really about prolonging your life? If your doctor is telling you to do something that will reduce the risk of one condition, but increase your risk of getting another, which is just as bad, is that good medicine? In western medicine, we've focused intently on heart disease, since it is the #1 killer, and has been for most of the past century. But if the advice of modern medicine in reducing heart disease actually makes you more prone to cancer or stroke, is that good advice? I'd argue that trading a heart attack for a stroke or cancer isn't good medicine. We should be taking the blinders off so we can look at the whole body, and not break it into individual parts.
The study compared the cholesterol levels and other cardiovascular risk factors of the participants with the death rates. Of course they saw that cigarette smoking and high blood pressure were direct links to cardiovascular disease and a shorter life span. In contrast, the results for cholesterol should have blown the top off conventional medicine's view of "standard of care", but for some reason it hasn't been reported yet. If you are a woman, your risk of dying actually goes down as your cholesterol goes up, at least to 270. That's right, as a woman, the higher the cholesterol, the longer they live. This is similar to what I had written about in Medicine is Sexist, where I discussed the POSCH study showing that cholesterol lowering medications were worthless for women. Here is further proof that we are not only over medicating women in America, but we are actually reducing their life expectancy through false medical dogma.
With men and cholesterol, the issue is a little more complicated. It seems there is a "U"-shaped curve in regards to death rates versus cholesterol. While modern medicine would expect this curve to be in the low 100's, it is actually in the low 200's. As you can see in the graph below, the highest average death risk for both men and women was actually in those that had the lowest cholesterol. Medicine's concept is not only flawed, but it is raising the risks of everyone dying if their cholesterol is artificially lowered beyond 200.
Why would modern medicine do this? Why would they bully patients into going on medications to lower their cholesterol, when research has repeatedly told us it is unhealthy? Unfortunately, I'd say we have to follow the money. In 2010, between just Lipitor and Crestor, Americas spent $10 billion. This doesn't take into account the other brand name and generic medications that lower cholesterol, nor the visits to general practitioners or cardiologists to keep these prescriptions up to date. When you then add in the print, radio, TV, and internet advertisements that drug companies are paying to media outlets to promote their products, is it any wonder that research that places the status quo in doubt is ignored? To say that keeping the public focused on lowering their cholesterol is an industry that makes tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars a year is not outlandish. If we were to take this cost out of health care, what would happen? Would we see the rise in insurance rates begin to slow, or even drop some? That may be too much to expect, but we would see people living longer.
Does that mean that we should all forget about cholesterol and let it get as high as it can? The research doesn't tell us that. For men at least, it doesn't appear that way. It looks like we should try to keep it between 195 and 230, and for women, up into the high 200's looks fine. Unfortunately, the research didn't look at cholesterol type or particle size, and that's what the latest research is telling us is really the big deal.
For many years, medicine has been looking not only at total cholesterol, but also at HDL, LDL, and VLDL. They've considered these the "good" (HDL), "bad" (LDL), and "ugly" (VLDL) of cholesterol. Categorizing them as good, bad, and ugly is rudimentary when we look at health impacts, since in each of these categories, we can also look at particle size, and that seems to be the most important. Generally, having high HDL is good, but there are types of HDL that are also bad for us. LDL is considered bad, but there are some that are worse than others. Right now, getting your cholesterol checked, and getting only total, HDL, and LDL is like 15 years ago only getting the total. It really doesn't tell us a whole lot yet, because we're not looking closely enough.
Is cholesterol something we should be concerned about? Yes, we probably should, but not in the way modern medicine has bullied us into believing. Women have little to worry about, unless it it too low. Men seem to have a range that is best, but I believe that when we do the research and look at particle size, that will break down further. Having a total cholesterol of 250 with an HDL of 100 is more than likely just fine. Having a total of 220 with an HDL of 30 is far from safe. When we routinely start looking at sub-fractions, we'll see things that tell us a whole lot more.
It's unfortunate that quality research like this is ignored by the media and modern medicine right now. As the evidence continues to pile against current recommendations, eventually, the tide will turn and patients will be told the truth: BigPharma, modern medicine, the government, and the media have played a hoax on the public to the tune of hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, and accelerated the death of millions. In the mean time, the best you can do is be educated and armed with research, so you can take control of your own healthcare. For more information on the study, click on the link below.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
"Is the use of cholesterol in mortality risk algorithms in clinical guidelines valid? Ten years prospective data from the Norwegian HUNT 2 study" Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; Sept 25, 2011.
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