| Although not in standard
bibliographical convention, these notes should make it easy to track down the information. I have upgraded all of the links in November 2010.
Also Available: Article | Bibliography | Short version | Adobe Acrabot (PDF) version
Footnote
#15 | Footnote #30 | Footnote #45 | Footnote #60
1.
Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "Statin Damage to the Mevalonate Pathway". Also Uffe Ravnskov, "6.
The Effect of the statins is not due to cholesterol-lowering" The statins
inhibit the body's production of a substance called mevalonate, which is a precursor of cholesterol.
When the production of mevalonate goes down, less cholesterol is produced by the cells and thus
blood cholesterol goes down as well. But mevalonate is a precursor of other substances also,
substances with important biologic functions. 2.
"Do Statins Have a Role in Primary
Prevention," a review by the Therapeutics Initiative of the Department of Pharmacology &
Therapeutics of the University of British Columbia, Therapeutics Letters, April - May -
June 2003. Also available in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.
3. Joel M. Kauffman (Professor of Chemistry
Emeritus), "Statin Sales Slow"
4. Paul Rosch, "Converting Millions of Healthy People
into Perpetual Patients" 5. Beatrice A. Golomb in "Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD on Statin Drugs". 6.
Jocalyn Clark, "A hot flush
for Big Pharma," BMJ (British Medical Journal) 2003;327;400 (16 August) 7. According to Dr. Peter Langsjoen, a specialist in "congestive heart
failure, primary and statin-induced diastolic dysfunction and other diseases of the heart muscle."
Maryann Napoli,
"Cholesterol skeptics and the Bad News about Statin Drugs" 8.
Christian B. Allan, Ph.D. and Wolfgang Lutz, M.D., Life Without Bread (Keats
Publishing, 2000), p. 67. Chapter five, "Less is More," found from pages 35-72, is an explanation of
the body's energy production. 9. Peter H. Langsjoen,
M.D., F.A.C.C., "The Clinical Use of HMG CoA-reductase inhibitors (statins) and the associated depletion of
the essential co-factor coenzyme Q10; a review of pertinent human and animal data." (PDF File) 10.
See footnote 9 (above).
11. "Ubiquinone in a slightly altered form known as ubiquinol is found in all membranes where it has a vital function in maintaining membrane integrity. Liver inflammation, with breakdown of liver cells releasing their enzymes into the blood stream and thereby serving as a marker of statin damage, is likely due, at least in part, to loss of cell wall integrity." Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "Aging and CoQ10" 12. "Ubiquinone is also vital to the formation of elastin and collagen formation. Tendon and ligament inflammation and rupture are frequently reported in the elderly and it is likely that the mechanism of this predisposition to damage is related to some as yet unknown compromise of ubiquonine's role in connective tissue formation." Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "Aging and CoQ10" 13. "Statins block the
endogenous biosynthesis of both cholesterol and CoQl0 by inhibiting the enzyme HMG CoA reductase,
thus decreasing mevalonate, the precursor of both cholesterol and CoQ10." Peter H. Langsjoen, M.D.,
F.A.C.C., "The Clinical Use of HMG CoA-reductase inhibitors (statins) and the associated depletion of
the essential co-factor coenzyme Q10. (PDF File) 14.
Christian B. Allan, Ph.D. and Wolfgang Lutz, M.D., Life Without Bread (Keats
Publishing, 2000), p. 160. 15. Duane Graveline, M.D.,
M.P.H., "The Dark Side of Statins" 16. Nicholas
Regush, Red Flag Daily's "Health Trend Forecast," May 16, 2003 (a newsletters sent to Red Flags subscribers). "Anyone on
the statin drug, Mevacor (as merely one example), might like to know that Canadian prescribing
information includes a notice in the Precautions section stating the following: Effect
on CoQ10 Levels (Ubiquinone) A Significant decrease in plasma CoQ10
levels in patients treated with Mevacor and other statins has been observed in short-term clinical
trials. The clinical significance of a potential long-term statin-induced deficiency of CoQ10 has
not yet been established . . . 17.
Peter H. Langsjoen, M.D., F.A.C.C., "The Clinical Use of HMG CoA-reductase inhibitors (statins) and the associated depletion of
the essential co-factor coenzyme Q10; a review of pertinent human and animal data." (PDF File) 18.
Maryann Napoli, "Cholesterol skeptics and
the Bad News about Statin Drugs" 19. Peter H.
Langsjoen, M.D., F.A.C.C., "The Clinical Use of HMG CoA-reductase inhibitors (statins) and the associated depletion of
the essential co-factor coenzyme Q10; a review of pertinent human and animal data." (PDF File) 20.
"It has been pretty well documented from biopsies that the severity of heart failure
correlates with the people who have the lowest levels of Q10." (Attributed to Peter H. Langsjoen.)
Maryann Napoli,
"Cholesterol skeptics and the Bad News about Statin Drugs" "Statins kill people - lots
of people - and they wound many, many more." Peter H. Langsjoen, M.D., "Introduction to the Citizen's Petition on Statins"
21. Peter H. Langsjoen, M.D., "Introduction to the Citizen's Petition on Statins"
22. "Ubiquinone in its slightly altered form known as ubiquinol is found in all cellular membranes where it has a vital function in maintaining membrane integrity. Myopathy and rhabdomyolysis represent breakdown of weakened muscle cell walls due to lack of sufficient ubiquinol for muscle cell wall integrity. This same mechanism also is responsible for nerve cell breakdown and neuropathies." Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "Muscle Pain and Statins" 23. "Watchover [a program
of the FDA] was informed of each Baycol death as it occurred during these past two years but
bureaucratic inertia allowed over fifty fatalities to occur before action was taken placing the
credibility and effectiveness of FDA in serious question." Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "The Statin Dialogues – A Fable" 24. Dr. Julian M. Whitaker,
M.D.,
"Citizen Petition to Change the Labeling for All Statin Drugs . . ." (PDF File) 25. "Do Statins Have a
Role in Primary Prevention," a review by the Therapeutics Initiative of the Department of
Pharmacology & Therapeutics of the University of British Columbia, Therapeutics
Letters, April - May - June 2003. Also available in
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. 26. Coloradohealthsite.org" Editorial Comment on Cholesterol and Statin Drugs"
27. Beatrice A. Golomb in "Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD on Statin Drugs". 28. Duane
Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., Zocor (Simvastatin) – UK Side Effect Reports. 29. Duane
Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "The Statin
Dialogues" 30. Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "Transient Global Amnesia Associated With The Statin Drugs"
31. "Statins
and Risk of Polyneuropathy: A Case-control Study," by D. Gaist, MD, PhD; U. Jeppesen, MD, PhD; M. Andersen, MD, PhD; L. A. Garcia Rodriguez, MD, MSc; J. Hallas, MD, PhD; and S. H. Sindrup MD, PhD; Neurology, May 2002. 32. See footnote 31 (above). 33.
Except where noted, information from this section is from "Identifying and Preventing
Statin-Associated Muscle Problems" based on the study "Statin-Associated Myopathy," by Paul D.
Thompson, MD; Priscilla Clarkson, PhD; Richard H. Karas, MD, PhD ; JAMA, April 2, 2003. See also Beatrice A. Golomb in "Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD on Statin Drugs". 34. "CK Blood Test Inadequate to Diagnose
Statin-Associated Myopathy," a review of "Statin-Associated Myopathy with Normal Creatine Kinase
Levels," by Paul S. Phillips, MD; Richard H. Haas, MD; Sergei Bannykh, MD, PhD; Stephanie Hathaway,
RN; Nancy L. Gray, RN; Bruce J. Kimura, MD; Georgirene D. Vladutiu, PhD; John D.F. England, MD, the
Scripps Mercy Clinical Research Center; Annals of Internal Medicine, October 1, 2002. 35. Joseph Mercola, M.D., "The Baycol Recall: How Safe is Your
Statin?" 36. "Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD on
Statin Drugs" – http://www.coloradohealthsite.org/
– search on "Golomb". 37. "Recently, Drs. Thomas
Newman and Stephen Hulley published the results from a meticulous review of what we know about
cancer and lipid-lowering drugs. They found that clofibrate, gemfibrozil and all the statins
stimulate cancer growth in rodents (90)." (90 = Newman TB, Hulley SB. Carcinogenicity of
lipid-lowering drugs. JAMA 1996;275:55-60.) – Uffe Ravnskov, "6. The Effect of the statins is not due to
cholesterol-lowering" 38. Uffe Ravnskov, "Evidence that statin treatment causes cancer,"
Letter to the editor of Lancet, sent 10. December 2002 39.
Christian B. Allan, Ph.D. and Wolfgang Lutz, M.D., Life Without Bread (Keats
Publishing, 2000), p. 160. This quote has a footnote as follows: "Sinatra, S. "Care, cancer and
coenzyme Q10." J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. 33 (1999): 897-899." Also Paul Rosch, M.D., F.A.C.P. letter to the editor of the Washington Post – "All statins have been shown to be carcinogenic in animals in doses equivalent to those currently being prescribed. Although the lag time between exposure to a carcinogen and clinical detection is often a decade or more, a disturbing twelve-fold increase in breast cancer has already been reported in one study and more skin malignancies were noted in another." 40.
Uffe Ravnskov, M.D., Ph.D., "1. Your
cholesterol tells very little about your future health"
41. The information on
cholesterol is taken from three articles: Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., "What Causes Heart Disease"
Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "Cholesterol – Friend or Foe?"
Uffe Ravnskov, M.D., Ph.D.,
"1.Your cholesterol tells very little about your future health" 42. Barry Groves "The Cholesterol Myth, Part 1:
Introduction" 43. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig,
Ph.D., "The Oiling of America"
44.Except where noted, information in the
following list is taken from: Uffe Ravnskov, "Statins as the new aspirin"
Barry Groves, "The
Dangers of Low Cholesterol" 45. Mary G.
Enig, Ph.D. and Sally Fallon, "What Causes
Heart Disease" Also in "The Skinny on Fats" – "The few studies that indicate a correlation between fat reduction and a decrease in coronary heart disease mortality also document a concurrent increase in deaths from cancer, brain hemorrhage, suicide and violent death. (6 – "Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial; Risk Factor Changes and Mortality Results," JAMA, September 24, 1982, 248:12:1465)" 46. "A study of elderly French
women living in a nursing home showed that those with the highest cholesterol levels lived the
longest (The Lancet, 4/22/89). The death rate was more than five times higher for women with very
low cholesterol. Several other studies have shown similar results." Maryann Napoli, "Cholesterol Skeptics And
The Bad News About Statin Drugs" 47. This is
important enough and controversial enough that I am going to give the complete quote from the Colorado Health Site's "Editorial
Comment on Cholesterol and Statin Drugs": Media
messages and advertisements often urge patients to use drugs to reduce their LDL cholesterol below
130 and even below 100 in order to lower their risk of heart attack. The messages typically fail to
warn patients that LDL cholesterol levels below 130 may actually increase the risk of coronary heart
disease. For example, the FDA has recently approved a new laboratory blood test that can increase
the ability of doctors to predict the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). The test, called PLAC,
works by measuring an enzyme called lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2. FDA cleared the test
based on results of a 9 year study of more than 1,348 patients. The study was a part of a large
multi-center epidemiologic study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Patients were free from CHD at the start of the study and were followed for the development of
disease for nine years. The greatest increased risk for CHD was found in subjects with the highest
PLAC test results, and LDL cholesterol levels lower than 130mg/dL. [Emphasis in original.]
Giving a statin drug to a person with LDL cholesterol of 140 or below, as
is frequently done today, would result in a 30 to 60% reduction in his or her LDL cholesterol,
potentially placing him or her at increased risk for heart attack if his or her
lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 is high. 48.
Malcolm Kendricks MbChB, MRCGP, "Why The Cholesterol-Heart Disease Theory Is Wrong (Part Three: A Raised LDL Level Has No
Impact on Heart Disease)" – you will need to scroll down the page. Kendricks gives the following quote: There is a
direct association between falling cholesterol levels over the first 14 years and mortality over the
following 18 years (11% overall and 14% CVD death rate increase per 1 mg/dL per year drop in
cholesterol levels). Anderson KM JAMA 1987 49.
Duane Graveline, M.D., M.P.H., "Cholesterol – Friend or Foe?"
50. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., "Diet and Disease: Not What you Think"
51.
"Most risk factors for heart disease are merely "risk markers" that simply have some
statistical association with an increased incidence of coronary events. There are over 300 risk
factors for heart attacks, including a deep earlobe crease, premature vertex baldness, high selenium
toenail levels, having a pot belly, not having a nap or one or two glasses of wine a day." Paul J.
Rosch, M.D., F.A.C.P.,
"Do You Have Good Blood Pressure?" (Originally published in the July Health and Stress
monthly newsletter of the American Institute of Stress). 52.
Dr. Peter H. Langsjoen, "To
Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease, Why Don't We All Cut Off Our Ear Lobes" 53. "In order to successfully treat a disease it is necessary to remove or
reduce its cause rather than its manifestations or markers." "Attempting to treat or remove such
markers will accomplish nothing since they do not cause coronary disease." Paul J. Rosch, M.D.,
F.A.C.P., "Do You Have Good Blood Pressure?" originally in the July Health and Stress monthly newsletter of the American Institute of Stress The following quote is from Malcolm Kendrick MbChB, MRCGP, "Idiotic Thinking In Medicine
C-Reactive Protein: How The Medical Profession Will Turn A Symptom Into A Disease"
When you find an abnormality of some sort that is associated with a disease, you can
make a number of different conjectures: - The abnormality is caused by the disease
- An underlying problem causes both the abnormality and the 'disease'
- The disease is
caused by the abnormality
- It's a coincidence (one in twenty chance)
- You
haven't measured things properly
54.
Malcolm Kendricks MbChB, MRCGP, "hy The Cholesterol-Heart Disease
Theory Is Wrong (Part Two)" – you will need to scroll down. "So, at what point does saturated fat get turned
into cholesterol? "Answer, it doesn't. You don't make cholesterol out of
saturated fat. Cholesterol, when it is made in the liver, starts out as a substance called Acteyl-co
A. This is not a fat; it is nothing like a fat. It has several nitrogen atoms in it, and nitrogen
comes from protein." 55. Sally Fallon and
Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., "Diet and Disease:
Not What you Think" 56. Sally Fallon and Mary G.
Enig, Ph.D., in "The Oiling of
America", mention a 1964 study of 1,700 people by the famous heart surgeon De Bakey that showed
that blocked arteries were found in people with low cholesterol as often as those with high
cholesterol. (They refer to the following study: M De Bakey, et al, "Serum Cholesterol Values in
Patients Treated Surgically for Atherosclerosis," JAMA, 1964, 189:9:655-59.) This is just one
example. 57. There is a wealth of material available
online and off about this topic, fully supported by articles from peer-reviewed medical and
scientific journals. Significantly, none of the authors have any financial stake in the notion that
cholesterol causes heart disease. - Visit the website of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS). "The
aim with this website is to inform our colleagues and the public that this idea is not supported by
scientific evidence; in fact, for many years a huge number of scientific studies have directly
contradicted it.
- Barry Groves, Ph.D. (a doctor of nutritional science) has an excellent article
"The Cholesterol Myth"
-
Uffe Ravnskov, M.D., Ph.D. has written a book The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing
the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease. (New Trends Publishing,
2000, now out of print). This book could be a textbook on how to manipulate scientific data to produce a desired result regardless of facts. A large amount of the information found in the book can be found on his
website The Cholesterol Myths (scroll down to "Here are the Facts! and click on the blue numbers).
- "The Oiling of America" by Sally
Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., reviews how this theory came to be promulgated
- Another
article, "The Soft Science of Dietary Fat"
by Gary Taubes also points out how the theory was able to become accepted as fact
-
Thomas J, Moore, wrote a book Heart Failure: A Critical Inquiry into American Medicine and the
Revolution in Heart Care, (Touchstone Books, 1990) Chapter 5 from the book
is found online
58. Both examples taken
from Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., "Diet and Disease: Not What you Think"
59. "Several speakers expressed the opinion that the
statin drugs' ability to reduce cardiovascular mortality has nothing to do with cholesterol
reduction, but instead can be attributed to their anti-inflammatory effects. (A viewpoint that has
been appearing in medical journals over the last few years.)" Maryann Napoli, "Cholesterol Skeptics And
The Bad News About Statin Drugs" "That statin treatment works in patient and age
groups in whom a high cholesterol concentration is not a risk factor for cardiovascular disease
shows that the benefit is not the result of cholesterol lowering. High or low cholesterol
concentrations are markers for other, more important disease factors; they are not causal factors
themselves." Uffe Ravnskov, letter to the
editor, BMJ 2002;324:789 (30 March) Uffe Ravnskov, both in his book and online at "6. The Effect of the statins is not due to
cholesterol-lowering" points out a half dozen reasons. "And finally, the statins protected
against coronary heart disease whether the cholesterol was high or low although most studies have
shown that a normal or low cholesterol is no risk factor for coronary disease." They also protected
against strokes, although high cholesterol is not considered a risk factor for stroke. Clearly
something else is going on. "Statins have strong anti-coagulant effects, they stabilise
plaques and increase NO synthesis." [NO is nitric oxide, a powerful anti-coagulant.] Malcolm
Kendricks, MbChB, MRCGP, "Is Heart
Disease All Due to Blood Clots?" See also Malcolm Kendricks, MbChB, MRCGP, "Statins Do Not Prevent Heart Disease
– At Least Not By Lowering LDL/Cholesterol Levels" – you will need to scroll down. 60.
Malcolm Kendricks MbChB, MRCGP, "So, What Does Cause Heart Disease"
61. Same as 60 (above). 62. "Metabolic
Syndrome and its Effects on Heart Disease and Diabetes" (Circulation, 2003-07-29) – A Colorado Health Site review of the study "Metabolic Syndrome With and Without C-Reactive Protein as a Predictor of Coronary Heart
Disease and Diabetes in the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study, by Naveed Sattar, Allan Gaw,
Olga Scherbakova, Ian Ford, Denis St.J. O'Reilly, Steven M. Haffner, Chris Isles, Peter W.
Macfarlane, Chris J. Packard, Stuart M. Cobbe, and James Shepherd; Circulation, July 29, 2003." 63. Christian B.
Allan, Ph.D. and Wolfgang Lutz, M.D., Life Without Bread, (Keats Publishing, 2000), p. 89.
64. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., "What Causes Heart Disease"
The situation is further complicated by the fact that commercial vegetable oils contain
mostly omega-6 fatty acids. The body uses these types of fatty acids to make localized hormones,
called prostaglandins, that initiate the process of blood clotting and of inflammation. This is an
important mechanism. Without it, we would bleed to death when we cut ourselves and wounds would not
heal. The problem occurs when these clot- and inflammation-promoting prostaglandins are not balanced
by prostaglandins that inhibit clotting. Many of the anti-inflammatory
and clot-inhibiting prostaglandins are made from omega-3 fatty acids, of which there are very few in
commercial vegetable oils, or indeed in fruits, vegetables, fish and eggs raised by modern farming
methods. Thus, when the diet contains too much of omega-6 fatty acids and not enough of omega-3
fatty acids, there may be a tendency to form blood clots leading to heart attacks. (25)
Here is the footnote (25) referred to by Fallon and Enig in the above quote:
Kinsella, JE. Food Technology, October 1988, page 134; Lasserre M and others. Lipids
20(4), 227, 1985; Horrobin, DF. Reviews in Pure and Applied Pharmacological Sciences, Vol 4, Freund
Publishing House, 1983, pages 339-383; Devlin, TM, ed. Textbook of Biochemistry, 2nd Ed, Wiley
Medical, 1982, 429-430; Fallon S and Enig MG. Tripping Lightly Down the Prostaglandin Pathways, The
Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Health Journal 20(3), 5-8, 1996. (Also posted on "Tripping Lightly Down the PRostaglandin Pathways".)
65. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., "What Causes Heart Disease"
66. Christian B. Allan, Ph.D. and Wolfgang Lutz, M.D.,
Life Without Bread, (Keats Publishing, 2000), pp. 104-109. This book is based, in part, on the
experience of Dr. Lutz with thousands of patients over several decades. 67. Malcolm Kendricks MbChB, MRCGP, "So, What Does Cause Heart Disease"
and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D. and Sally Fallon, "What Causes Heart Disease" – The
Enig/Fallon article stresses the importance of saturated fats in the diet – they are rich in the
protective factors Vitamins A, D and E. 68. Nicholas
Regush in Red Flag Daily's "Health Trend Forecast," May 16, 2003 (a newsletters sent to
subscribers). "Anyone on the statin drug, Mevacor (as merely one example), might
like to know that Canadian prescribing information includes a notice in the Precautions section
stating the following: Effect on CoQ10 Levels (Ubiquinone) A
Significant decrease in plasma CoQ10 levels in patients treated with Mevacor and other statins has
been observed in short-term clinical trials. The clinical significance of a potential long-term
statin-induced deficiency of CoQ10 has not yet been established . . .
69. Bruce Fife, N.D., Saturated Fat May Save Your Life
(HealthWise, 1999), pp. 156 to 161. Doctors have been conservative for centuries
(possibly millennia). In the mid-19th century, prior to the discovery of bacteria, Ignaz Semmelweiss
(1818-1865) discovered that when physicians washed their hands in a chlorine solution prior to
assisting with a woman's labor, the death rate was dramatically reduced. When he published a book
about his findings in 1861, he was ridiculed. He lost at least one job for his discovery and went
insane as he tried to fight for his discovery. See Dr. Mark Taylor, "Ignaz Semmelweiss: 'Please wash
your hands'" Also Available: Article |
Bibliography | Short version | Adobe Acrabot (PDF) version | Return to top
Footnote
#15 | Footnote #30 | Footnote #45 | Footnote #60
|