Posted on 03/30/2025 7:18:10 AM PDT by ConservativeMind
The largest analysis to examine the best way to lower levels of "bad" cholesterol in patients with blocked arteries shows that they should immediately be given a combination of a statin and another drug called ezetimibe, rather than statins alone. This could prevent thousands of deaths a year from heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases.
The meta-analysis of 108,353 patients in 14 studies who were at very high risk of suffering heart attack or stroke, or who had already suffered one of these cardiovascular events shows that when ezetimibe was combined with a high dose statin to reduce levels of LDL-C, there was a significant 19% reduction in the risk of death from any cause, a 16% reduction in deaths from cardiovascular causes, and a significant reduction in the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events or stroke by 18% and 17% respectively, compared to high doses of statins alone.
The combination therapy also significantly reduced LDL-C levels by an extra 13mg per deciliter (dL) of blood compared to statins alone, measured from the time the patient first started the treatment. This increased the chances of reaching the ideal goal of less than 70mg/dL of LDL-C by 85%.
"These results were even more pronounced in the network meta-analysis, which enables a direct comparison of different therapy regimens used in the study. This showed a 49% reduction in all-cause mortality and a 39% reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events, when compared to high-dose statin therapy alone," said Maciej Banach,
"The combination therapy is safe and efficacious; the risk of adverse events and the therapy discontinuation rate was comparable between groups. In the network meta-analysis, we showed a significant 44% reduction in the risk of discontinuation in those treated with moderately high-dose statin therapy plus ezetimibe versus a high-dose statin alone."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
For some people, high cholesterol cannot be controlled by diet.
"Genetic predisposition plays a significant role in cholesterol levels. Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an inherited condition that leads to very high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol from a young age. Individuals with FH often require medical intervention to manage their cholesterol levels effectively." - Cited from Cleveland Clinic - Familial Hypercholesterolemia
That stuff is great, everyone should try it.
It doubled the effects of the stroke and caused a rapid loss of muscle. Left me in the corner in extreme pain babbling in a sort of semi delirious state and unable to do really anything. From time to time I would gather up enough strength to wander into the kitchen and turn all the burners on before retreating to the safety of my corner exhausted and not knowing what I had done.
Fortunately my mind made rapid recovery after I stopped taking them. The best part is that the kidney damage is forever!
Not everyone. I’ve got hereditary hyperlipidemia. Diet has a tiny relationship. The liver makes too much cholesterol.
E.g., inflammation treatment via chondroitin combined with glucosamine is mixed...if one test is with 90-10 its results cannot be compared with a 20-80 test. I use both and after waiting the necessary 4-6 months the improvement is staggering. I am without general arthritis pain.
Congrats! What percentage of each do you use (i.e., it still appears there’s a dosage question)? TIA.
I have two bottles of Statins in my cupboard, never opened. I have an appt and they will make sure to prescribe them again, and I will tell them a lie. eF em if they can’t take a joke. These are the same jokers who got me on Ozempic, and insulin. I changed my diet and in 3 months got my A1c from 8.7 to 5.3. My fasting blood glucose is in the high 80’s. It is almost all diet, we eat the sheet that is advertised on the tube, and get sick.
I had a heart attack this past August. I was overweight, I wasn’t taking any medications at the time, but I had exercised quite a bit in the roughly 18 months prior to that and also had passed a stress test in my cardiologist’s office with flying colors. I was supposed to reach the target rate at eight minutes based on my age and weight, but I went for over 12 minutes until they finally shut the machine off.
What I have found in studying heart disease, and the medical treatments surrounding it since that time is that a lot of what the medical establishment tells us is pure garbage (FYI, both my father and my mother’s father were doctors, along with many other family members and friends, so I have respect for individual docs who genuinely care about their patients). For instance, a stress test has extraordinarily little predictive value for future heart attacks. It measures blood flow, and that’s all. It doesn’t talk about the actual cause of a heart attack (or a stroke, for that matter), which is the bursting of soft plaque which, when it hits your bloodstream, creates blood clots. If the clots are large enough, they will either cause a heart attack or a stroke. What people need to do to find out if they are at real danger of a heart attack or stroke is to do a CIMT to determine the extent of actual blockage in the artery or, better yet, a test to determine how much of your plaque is calcified (which is low risk plaque) versus soft plaques.
I have also found that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, despite what the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession have been trying to jam down our throats for the last 50 or so years. First, cholesterol is only one of several components of plaque. But that’s not even the real issue. The real issue is why is plaque developing in your arteries in the first place. The answer to that is inflammation and micro cracks caused by high blood pressure and excess blood sugar and insulin. The simple fact is that plaque is your body‘s way of repairing the damage caused by inflammation. If your body didn’t self repair in this way, eventually the damage would cause blood leakage from your arteries into the rest of your body, and you would literally bleed out internally. Cholesterol can be analogized to firemen who are present on your street when one of the houses has burned down. They didn’t cause the fire, they were there to put the fire out. Similarly, cholesterol didn’t cause the plaques to form, cholesterol and the plaques are there to repair pre-existing damage. So, the key here is to prevent the damage from occurring in the first place, by significantly reducing carbohydrate consumption. Stopping smoking and stopping drinking alcohol will also help to reduce inflammation in one’s arteries. As far as the composition of fats, eliminating processed “vegetable” oils like canola, soy, corn and peanut, is also critical, as all of these oils that are supposedly healthy for you because they have no cholesterol, are actually the cause of an immense amount of inflammation, and not just in your arteries. The simple fact is that processed vegetable oils not only cause heart disease, but they also cause premature aging.
Also, I have found that the rabid insistence of the medical establishment about reducing the intake of dietary cholesterol is sheer nonsense. Our livers manufacture something like 4 to 5 times the amount of cholesterol as we consume daily, and the liver manufactures this cholesterol from carbohydrates. If we have a lot more cholesterol through our diet, the liver will produce less. It is a fallacy that dietary cholesterol causes causes a long-term increase in blood levels of cholesterol in the first place, which doesn’t actually seem to matter anyway. For what it’s worth, I generally have three eggs per day, with butter and cheese, and my cholesterol has actually dropped significantly (down to 110, which is why I cut my statin dose in half, because that is TOO low - cholesterol is part of every cell in the body, is a critical fraction of the nervous system including the brain, and is a critical precursor for all sex hormones.
If cholesterol - and ONLY cholesterol - actually caused heart disease and strokes, statins would be an impressive tool, though not one without some potentially serious side effects. There is Alzheimer’s or dementia of various types, there are liver problems, muscle aches (which are indicative of damage being caused, and a serious risk of causing diabetes. I am playing my doc’s game for a while, taking 10 mg/day of rosouvastatin (even though he prescribed 20, I am not telling him or my wife) plus blood thinners (because I have 3 stents and know that they can get clogged) and some blood pressure meds (I wasn’t high, but I want it lower to prevent damage to my arteries). I am also taking colchicine, which I suggested to my doc because it lowers inflammation in the arteries. Most importantly, I am severely restricting my carbohydrate intake, and trying to consume fat and protein before eating some carb crap so as to ameliorate the spike in both blood sugar and insulin.
“Most importantly, I am severely restricting my carbohydrate intake, and trying to consume fat and protein before eating some carb crap so as to ameliorate the spike in both blood sugar and insulin.”
Sorry you had those problems
—me , too—
I’ve been on Ezetimibe and Atorvastatin for many years. Cholesterol numbers are normal.
What’s your age?
60
And yes, I'm also vaxxed, but only the mandatory ones required for me to continue to work back in 2020. I haven't had a COVID vax since then.
I don’t fault you. Live life to the fullest and be well, FRiend.
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