This report advances the view that atherosclerosis has a significant auto-immune component (the body is “attacking itself”) in the same way as AIDS, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Cancer, Crohn’s Disease, Diabetes type 1 – youth type, etc do.

This is very different from the current view – discredited in my view, that:

* Atherosclerosis is mainly due simply to raised LDL cholesterol

* Statins are needed to lower it

* It needs to be at a level of 5.2

This is just too simplistic. As well as making tons of money for drug companies (by co-incidence!)

The report says that the immune system is stimulated to attack **oxidised** LDL (how does it get oxidised? Not sure – watch this space).

I have heard this theory of the problem of oxidized LDL being the problematic cholesterol before. Of course, doctors don’t know about this refinement of the theory, generally, let alone how to measure or treat it.

This fits in with other strong views (e.g. Dr Malcolm Kendrick, Uffe Ravnskov), that (asymptomatic) inflammation and stress are the two factors most closely associated with atherosclerosis – rather than simply looking at the raw level of total LDL.

Inflammation and stress will certainly be closely associated with auto-immune disease in general, I am sure. So it’s all tying in with that theory and against the use of statins, which is near to a crime in my view in the majority of cases. (Though no doubt a sensible choice in a tiny minority of cases.)

Related articles

• Immune therapies: The next frontier in battle against atherosclerosis (medicalxpress.com)

Atherosclerosis is an Immune Disease is a post from: Living To 150

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After a bit of research, it seems that lowering cholesterol by a moderate amount should not be that hard.

OK – doctors just slap you on statins. But that should not be option 1.

If you read around the subject it seems that you can reduce total cholesterol by one third through diet and take plant sterols. For example see the Portfolio Diet for ideas.

I don’t agree 100% with this diet: but it is a good start and much better than statin. MUCH better than statins.

Statin Dangers

A documentary on statins recently highlighted two cases of men who had been given statins and who had muscle wasting and energy diseases which they had not hint of previously. Very, very sad. One of the guys was crying at the functionality he had lost.  This should be a crime.  He had retired with a healthy retirement ahead of him, and he now could not walk to the end of the road – because of the muscle pain he had. This started just after he started statins.

So I would suggest trying the ‘Portfolio Diet‘ type of approach first.

It’s only a start – but a good one.

I will analyse it in more detail in a future post.

Cholesterol Lowering Regime is a post from: Living To 150

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