Statin Drugs to Lower Cholesterol May Actually Cause Atherosclerosis

Many people and a distressingly large number of doctors have what could be called a plumber's view of cholesterol.

The arteries are like pipes, in this view, and just as chalk can accumulate inside pipes, cholesterol can build up in blood vessels. If you keep calcium out of water, you prevent chalky buildup in pipes, so if you keep cholesterol out of your bloodstream, you won't get atherosclerosis.

This simplistic view of atherosclerosis is just plain wrong.

For one thing, atherosclerosis doesn't occur in all the body's "pipes." It's found in arteries, not veins, and it is not even found everywhere in arteries. Cholesterol deposits accumulate in the bend and turns of arteries, where there is increased pressure, where the lining of the artery is under greater stress.

The "clogs" that cause atherosclerosis, additionally, aren't really cholesterol. They are a mixture of cholesterol-laden cells that pumped in calcium that should have gone to bones. These cells die and harden. The resulting plaque gradually closes the blood vessel, but even when it is 90 percent occluded, some blood gets through. It's only when the plaque bursts or a blood clot forms that there is a heart attack or other kinds of injury in other organs.

If Cholesterol Doesn't Cause Atherosclerosis, Why Lower It?

The majority of people who have heart attacks don't have high cholesterol. You can have high cholesterol levels and not have atherosclerosis, and you can have low cholesterol levels and have severe atherosclerosis. The factor that seems to make a difference in whether you have a heart attack isn't whether your LDL cholesterol is high or low, but whether it is variable. The greater the swings in your cholesterol levels, up or down, the more likely you are to have a heart attack. This is actually a good reason for staying on a statin, a cholesterol lowering drug once you start it.

However, it turns out that lowering cholesterol isn't the only thing that statin drugs do. They also reduce inflammation. If you already have moderate to severe atherosclerosis, the statin drug makes keep the "cap" on a cholesterol deposit from bursting and blocking a blood vessel. Even though some cardiologists become fanatic about lowering cholesterol, from 200 mg/dl to 25 mg/dl, for example, cholesterol levels are just one factor in the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular incidents. Controlling blood pressure and blood sugar levels are at least as important. Moreover, if you don't take special care to diet, if you don't already have cardiovascular disease, taking a statin may give it to you.

READ Evidence That Statins Stimulate Atherosclocrosis And Heart Failure

Statin Side Effects Your Doctor May Not Tell You About

Cholesterol plaques in the linings of arteries don't harden until their cells absorb unusual amounts of calcium. These cells don't absorb large amounts of calcium unless there is a shortage of vitamin K2. Ironically, this is a vitamin found in relative abundance in egg yolks and fatty cheeses. Statin drugs suppress the synthesis of vitamin K2 in the body, increasing the calcification of cholesterol in the linings of the arteries. Statins also suppress the formation of glutathione, which reduces the oxidative stress that activates the white blood cells that feed on cholesterol and get stuck in the linings of arteries.

Should You Quit Taking Your Statin Medication?

There are good reasons for taking a statin medication if you have already had a heart attack or stroke, or if you know you already have atherosclerosis. Keeping your LDL cholesterol below 100 mg/dl is also important if you have diabetes, especially if your blood sugar levels are poorly controlled. You may need a statin drug to prevent coronary artery disease, usually in combination with an ACE-inhibitor (a drug such as lisinopil) or an ACE-receptor blocker (a drug such as losartan), if you have kidney failure. Statins have some unusual applications, such as treating tinnitus or noise-induced hearing loss. Some people really need them.

However, anyone who takes a statin drug should also take vitamin K2. Most people who take statins should also take N-acetylcysteine.

Vitamin K2 supplements help your body maintain the levels of the vitamin it needs to regulate calcium transport. You want calcium going into your bones, not into the linings of your arteries. Most of the foods that are rich in K2 would horrify your cardiologist. 

• Goose liver pâté contains about 370 micrograms of vitamin K2 per serving.
• Gouda cheese contains about 76 micrograms of vitamin K2 per serving.
• Brie cheese contains about 57 micrograms of vitamin K2 per serving.

A daily serving of goose liver pâté, but not other kinds of pâté, or Gouda or Brie, but not other kinds of cheese, supplies your vitamin K2 needs for a day. There are lesser amounts of the vitamin in egg yolks (especially yolks from eggs from free-range chickens) and butter (especially from pastured cows in the Netherlands and Ireland) and a few other foods, but not really enough to exert a therapeutic effect.

A fermented soy food known as natto contains nearly three times as much vitamin K2 as goose liver, but it's hard to find, and it's something of an acquired taste. It looks like mucus and smells like unwashed tennis shoes. For most of us, the only way we are going to get enough vitamin K2 to make a difference is to take a supplement. Most US and Canadian supplements contain 45 micrograms of K2, enough for the body's daily needs, usually combined with vitamin D.

It can also help to take N-acetylcysteine. This is an amino acid that the human body can use to make glutathione, which reduces the oxidative stress in the bloodstream that makes white blood cells more active, and more likely to get "stuck" in the arteries and form plaques. You shouldn't take N-acetylcysteine unless you also get adequate vitamin B6 and folic acid, however, and you probably shouldn't take the supplement if you are a heavy smoker or a heavy drinker, because of the possibility of a condition called homocysteinuria, which can occur when these B vitamins are depleted by excesses of alcohol and tobacco.

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If you have congestive heart failure or cardiomyopathy, you probably should also take coenzyme Q10, which is also known as Co-Q10. This compound helps your heart muscle deal with low oxygen levels. It's made in the liver, but to the extent statin drugs stop the production of cholesterol in the liver, they also stop the production of Co-Q10.

This article can't tell you whether your doctor made a good decision to put you on a statin medication. Let's assume your doctor was right. Be sure to protect yourself against the worst potential side effects of statin medications by adding nutritional supplementation with at least vitamin K2, and usually N-acetylcysteine and Co--Q10.