“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
We continue to mourn the untimely passing of our beloved compatriot DePat, known in real life as Susie Sampson, and also as author Patricia Holden.
Until we have a dedicated author for the Tuesday daily open thread, I will be posting “placeholders” like this one, which may or may not be spiced up with additional content.
Gudthots will take DePat’s old Thursday daily open thread.
Please notify me in advance if you would like to post anything in lieu of the Tuesday placeholder. We welcome all content – the topic doesn’t matter.
W
Cholesterol and Statins
by Gail Combs
Since many of us on the Qtree are older I wanted to document my adventures with the medical establishment. Hopefully my digging will help others avoid harmful drugs by providing the information you need to make an informed decision.
My Labs came back:
LDL = 114(H)
HDL = 98(H)
The Doc wanted to put me on STATINS and my answer was HELL NO!
What I found incredible is the lack of knowledge of the three doctors I have encountered so far. The first, despite my telling her I had a major problem with losing potassium, put me on a high level of Prednisone WITHOUT mentioning the fact I might have to take addition potassium (K) to offset the additional loss of K from the drug. This is well documented in the literature.
In the follow-up visit, not only was a statin recommended but the connection between chronic inflammation (my asthma) and higher cholesterol levels was completely ignored.
As I mentioned, the vast majority of cholesterol in your body was made in your liver. Cholesterol production increases when the body is under stress: emotional stress can cause elevated cholesterol because the stress hormone cortisol is made out of cholesterol. Physical stress on the body can also elevate cholesterol. Because cholesterol helps to repair and heal your body, you will produce more if there is a great deal of inflammation occurring in your body. So all those factors above that raise inflammation, can raise your cholesterol too.
Therefore the cure for elevated cholesterol can be quite simple –lower the inflammation and you’ll also lower the cholesterol.
Manuscript Submission Deadline 29 April 2025. This Research Topic is still accepting articles.
Background
Cholesterol metabolism and immune response are closely linked. Cholesterol is critical for the synthesis of lipid rafts, which activate receptors involved in antigen recognition, influences the production of NET and modulates the activation and polarization of macrophages. Oxysterols in turn regulate macrophage activation, migration, and cytokine production. While the immune response modulates the expression of genes involved in the synthesis, absorption and efflux of cholesterol. Cholesterol accumulation in immune cells promotes proinflammatory immune responses creating a vicious cycle that sustains immune inflammation. High-density lipoproteins (HDL) are typically reduced during inflammation, when reverse cholesterol transport is impaired, thus promoting hyperactivation of TLR2 and TLR4 by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and other microbial products, resulting in inhibition of stress-induced activating transcription (ATF) 3 and enhanced production of cytokines by macrophages. Further endangering an already delicate balance, HDL proinflammatory subfractions with lower content of apoA-1, antioxidant enzymes, and L-CAT, are produced, and further fuel inflammation.
Alterations in the biochemical network between cholesterol, inflammation and immunity are emerging as a pathogenetic mechanism of numerous human disorders, among which atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases and their complications, metabolic diseases and diabetes, infectious diseases and sepsis, autoimmune and auto-multiinflammatory disorders, acquired and congenital hypo-immune diseases, and cancer….
So the Cabal’s bio-weapon, SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, is likely to raise cholesterol levels given the body’s response to the spike protein is inflammation and in many cases chronic inflammation known as Long Covid.
….other papers showed that the spike protein by itself (without being part of the corona virus) can damage endothelial cells and disrupt the blood-brain barrier. These findings may be even more relevant to the pathogenesis of long-COVID syndrome that may affect as many as 50% of those infected with SARS-CoV-2. In COVID-19, a response to oxidative stress is required by increasing anti-oxidant enzymes. In this regard, it is known that polyphenols are natural anti-oxidants with multiple health effects. Hence, there are even more reasons to intervene with the use of anti-oxidant compounds, such as luteolin, in addition to available vaccines and anti-inflammatory drugs to prevent the harmful actions of the spike protein.
Luteolin, 3′,4′,5,7-tetrahydroxyflavone, is a common flavonoid that exists in many types of plants including fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs. Plants rich in luteolin have been used in Chinese traditional medicine for treating various diseases such as hypertension, inflammatory disorders, and cancer. Having multiple biological effects such as anti-inflammation, anti-allergy and anticancer, luteolin functions as either an antioxidant or a pro-oxidant biochemically…. Vegetables and fruits such as celery, parsley, broccoli, onion leaves, carrots, peppers, cabbages, apple skins, and chrysanthemum flowers are luteolin rich….
Next I want to get into the vilification of cholesterol and it’s history. The following is a great article and well worth reading. This is just a sample.
The mean would be 224 so my LDL is actually on the very low end of the scale! And even if the chart is actually looking at the combined amount of LDL + HDL, then my 114+98 = 212 is still lower than average. From the article:
This same range of cholesterol levels has been seen in people who do have heart disease and peoplewho do nothave heart disease, as documented by Professor Brisson using data from the Framingham Study – which is one of the largest studies ever done in it.
Since the Framingham Study, other studies have also confirmed that people WITH heart disease have the same cholesterol levels as people WITHOUT heart disease.
For example, in the UK, the typical person who has a heart attack tends to have the same cholesterol level that is seen for healthy middle-aged and older people in the general population. Something that is not unique to the UK.
A study published in the Lancet, included 5,754 patients from Australia and New Zealand who had already had a heart attack. The average cholesterol level of this group of people was around 220 mg/dl (5.7 mmol/l). Data from the WHO Global Infobase shows that around the same time, the average cholesterol level for the general population was also 220 mg/dl (5.7 mmol/l).
So people who suffered a heart attack had the same average cholesterol level as the general healthy population.
This is a direct and explicit consequence of the shift to eating garbage.
Processed food is INHUMANE. It’s the fastest way to kill off our population, which it looks like these people are trying to do.
The Real Research Has Been Buried
One of the most comprehensive studies on heart disease was COMPLETELY buried.
Data from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment was unearthed in 2017 after 40 years of sitting dormant.
Ancel Keys, the progenitor of the diet-heart hypothesis, was the lead on the study. It was one of the most comprehensive to date: randomized, controlled and 9,400 participants.
Subjects were in mental health institutions or nursing homes, which helped to ensure the dietary guidelines were followed to a tee for 56 months.
The control group continued to eat a diet high in saturated fats and animal fats. The intervention group ate a serum cholesterol lowering diet that replaced saturated fat with vegetable oils (from corn oil and corn oil polyunsaturated margarine).
Results:
The intervention group had a 14% reduction in cholesterol
But this didn’t reduce death rate. There was a 22% HIGHER risk of death for each 30 mg/dL reduction in cholesterol….
A Sharyl Attkisson clip of 9 minutes, giving some history. In 2004, recommended cholesterol levels were lowered based on a study by doctors connected to the drug manufacturers. When this conflict of interest was pointed out the FDA ignored it. And then the recommended levels were lowered even further in 2013. Half of the ‘advisors’ recommending the levels were compensated by the Drug manufacturers. And then there is the American Heart Association who develops the standards and its relationship to the drug manufacturers.
What is worse, is not only are statins a money waster, they are also very bad for you.
Since their introduction in the 1980s, statin drugs have been almost universally hailed as “wonder drugs” by medical authorities around the world. The global market for statins was $16 billion in 2016, and approximately 40 million Americans (that’s one in every five adults!) takes a statin….
As you know, we have seen statin cholesterol drugs do really bad things to stem cells in culture. On the other end of that spectrum, we’ve also seen high triglycerides due to metabolic syndrome hurt stem cells. One of our patients who was instructed to get off statin drugs before her stem cell procedure recently sent this article by MIT professor Dr. Stefanie Seneff, which is so well done and does such a great job of explaining why statins are bad for you, I had to share. It is also so scientifically dense; I thought a quick summary would be helpful for my readers. Here goes:
Statins decrease cholesterol by blocking an important enzyme pathway, yet cholesterol is needed for the normal health functioning of all cells. In particular, cholesterol is a key component of all healthy cell membranes.
Cholesterol is also needed to make vitamin D3, sex hormones, and steroid hormones.
The brain is only 2% of the body’s total weight, but houses 25% of the body’s cholesterol.
LDL cholesterol is what we have been trained to believe is “bad” cholesterol, when in fact it’s an important transport container for many key items.
The outer shell of the LDL transport container is vulnerable to attack by high blood sugars, so in patients with poor blood sugar control (metabolic syndrome) these important transport containers for key nutrients get gummed up by these extra sugars in the blood.
These “gummed up” LDL containers get attacked by cells of the body in the walls of blood vessels which lead to “plaques” that clog arteries.
Artificially lowering cholesterol by statin drugs causes the LDL transport containers to have too little protection. The function of these containers would normally be to transport excess blood sugars from the liver as fat and get rid of this throughout the body. However, these cholesterol deficient containers can’t perform this important function, magnifying the bad effects of excess sugar consumption. This is what makes high fructose corn syrup so dangerous, as fructose as a sugar is ten times more efficient in gumming up the LDL transport system.
This damaged sugar to fat transport system due to a lowered cholesterol level also results in too much fructose in the blood stream (which would normally be converted to fat in the liver and transported by the LDL transport system). This excess blood sugar causes damage to the proteins in the blood.
Co-enzyme Q10 synthesis is hampered by the blockage of the cholesterol enzyme pathway and this is needed to run cells and muscles. This can result in problems in the batteries of the cells and muscles (mitochondria).
Since the muscles can’t use CoQ10, they decide instead to use all of that extra fructose in the blood serum, which is now in plentiful (and damaging) supply because statins block it’s conversion into fat by the liver and it’s transport out of the liver by the LDL containers. When they do this, it’s without oxygen, so it’s anaerobic and lactic acid builds up, causing painful muscles.
The muscles do process the fructose, but they do so in a really inefficient way, requiring 19 times more energy to get the same muscle output-causing a sense of fatigue.
This alternative fuel system for the muscles leads to damaged muscle cells. After several years of lactic acid build-up due to statin use (the equivalent of being forced to run a constant marathon), the muscles “give out”. This author believes that this leads to a higher rate of severe muscle disorders like rhambdomyolysis as well as kidney failure (due to the renal system processing all of these muscle break down products). The author also believes that these muscle breakdown products can lead to nerve damage. She believes that this nerve damage can lead to a higher incidence of severe diseases such as ALS. My comments: These claims will take intensive study to see if they hold up.
The lack of cholesterol in the system eventually results in the heart and other tissues becoming dependent on an alternate fuel supply-sugar. There is also impaired uptake of glucose by the cells, which leads to the higher prevalence of diabetes that shows up in statin studies.
Cholesterol is critical for normal brain function. As mentioned already, the brain contains a lot of cholesterol as it makes up the important covering of the nerves (myelin sheath). Think of this as like the plastic covering of a wire, which insulates the wire and allows it to conduct electricity. This would explain the common reports of memory loss in patients taking statin drugs. A recent study that involved careful manual labeling of statin side effects from large studies showed a higher degree of neurological disorders in patients taking statins. These include neuropathy, parasthesia and neuralgia, and debilitating neurological diseases, ALS and Parkinson’s disease.
Longer life in one study that followed patients for 17 years was associated with higher cholesterol levels and full function of the enzymes that statin drugs inhibit. The author concludes that statins are a great way to fast track aging.
This author belives that eating foods rich in cholesterol and sulfur (like eggs) and sun exposure are ways to increase your cholesterol sulfate levels which can help clear arteries, not block them.
The upshot? Dr. Seneff believes that these statin side effects will eventually cause the recall of the drug class. Is she right? All I can say is that much of the science she explains makes sense and that we’ve seen what statin drugs can do to cells in culture and it isn’t pretty!
From: Cuppa Covfefe(@guest_1428881) March 7, 2025 21:01
Statins can cause issues with the mitochondrial respiratory chain… lots of conflicts, interactions, and contra-indications when mito issues exist or are suspected…
