Full Transcript Statins and Their Hidden Risks 0:07 Hey, in today's video, I'm 0:08 talking about the hidden dangers of cholesterol medications. 0:12 Cholesterol medications, in particular. 0:14 Statin drugs are some of the most commonly prescribed medications in the world, but 0:19 they could be increasing your risk of type two diabetes, dementia, and Alzheimer's. 0:23 You see 0:24 statin drugs again, there are some of the most commonly prescribed medications. 0:28 They're used to lower your bad cholesterol, your LDL levels, 0:32 and supposedly reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, 0:35 heart attacks, and stroke. 0:37 The unfortunate reality 0:38 is that they don't meaningfully reduce your risk of heart disease. 0:42 And studies actually show they increase your overall risk 0:46 of developing muscle loss, called 0:48 sarcopenia, lowered libido and erectile dysfunction, 0:51 as well as metabolic diseases such as type two diabetes and fatty liver disease, 0:57 as well as neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's. 1:02 What's the reason for this? 1:03 Well, statins have been shown to decrease mitochondrial respiratory function 1:08 and increase oxidative stress and damage to the mitochondria. 1:12 This results in lowered cellular energy production. 1:15 Ultimately, when we have damaged mitochondria, 1:18 we're not going to be able to burn fat effectively for fuel. 1:20 We're going to create more inflammation in our body, and it's going to accelerate 1:24 the aging process leading to all forms of chronic disease. 1:28 So what are statin drugs? 1:30 Well, statins are a type of medication that's commonly used
How Statins Affect Mitochondria 1:34 to lower low density lipoprotein or LDL. 1:37 We call that, you know, many people in society call that bad cholesterol. 1:41 And supposedly that reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease 1:44 and stroke and prevent cardiovascular disease from getting worse. 1:48 If you lower these LDL cholesterol. 1:50 There are seven types of satin drugs available on the market today 1:54 that are currently approved by the FDA. 1:56 They include flu, statin, or Lipitor. 1:59 They include private call Zocor. 2:02 They include, Crestor, which is one of the most common ones that are out there. 2:06 You see, these stands 2:07 are the most commonly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs in the world. 2:11 But there's some important things we need to understand about cholesterol. 2:14 Number one is it's essential for cellular function. 2:18 And your brain is roughly 30% cholesterol. 2:21 Cholesterol is also necessary for the production of key hormones. 2:25 Testosterone, progesterone and estrogen. 2:29 Low cholesterol leads to fatigue, hormone 2:31 problems, weakness, memory loss, and dementia. 2:35 So we have to ask this question how do statin drugs work? 2:39 Well, they block the activity of the liver 2:42 enzyme HMG CoA reductase. 2:45 That's in charge of cholesterol production. 2:48 They also while they're blocking HMG CoA reductase, they also block 2:52 the synthesis of coenzyme Q10, 2:55 which acts as a mobile electron carrier, facilitating the transfer of electrons 3:00 from complex one to complex three in the electron transport chain. 3:04 For cellular energy production, we know statins can directly inhibit 3:09 the activity of the respiratory chain complexes one, three, and four, 3:13 which are involved in energy production through oxidative phosphorylation. 3:17 Basically, they stop our mitochondria from producing cellular energy. 3:22 They drive up oxidative stress and damage mitochondrial function. 3:27 We know statins can lead to an increase in what we call reactive oxygen species. 3:32 Ros in the mitochondria, 3:35 and again, that damages mitochondria components and impairs their function. 3:39 They also dis regulate calcium metabolism 3:41 in the mitochondria, which can affect mitochondrial function, 3:46 and that can contribute to higher levels of oxidative stress and muscle damage. 3:51 Some studies have shown that statins can induce mitochondrial 3:55 apoptosis, potentially contributing to muscle cell damage.
Common Side Effects and Risk Factors 3:59 In fact, that's one of the main side effects 4:01 is this myopathy, where people have major pain in their muscles. 4:06 And that's because of this, this concept where they'll actually increase apoptosis 4:11 in the mitochondria of the muscle cells, causing muscle cell damage. 4:16 They also impair mitochondrial biogenesis. 4:19 We know that statins are associated with a decrease 4:22 in the ability to form new, healthy mitochondria. 4:26 So we end up with just damaged, senescent old mitochondria. 4:30 And that interferes with your ability to burn fat for fuel. 4:35 And that potentially impacts energy production. 4:37 Obviously, you're not able to produce as much energy in the cell. 4:40 And the cells forced to survive on glucose metabolism, 4:44 which drives up more oxidative stress and inflammation in the body. 4:48 So what are the most common side effects of using statin drugs? 4:51 Well, there's something called muscle weakness or Samms, 4:54 which is statin induced muscular dystrophy. 4:59 Right. 4:59 And so basically the muscle system is not able to function 5:02 well because the mitochondria are so damaged. 5:05 Also, things like depression, erectile dysfunction, memory loss, 5:10 digestive problems, high blood sugar, type two diabetes, 5:14 headaches, low platelets trouble sleeping and skin problems. 5:19 Now, here are some of the main risk factors for getting those side effects. 5:23 Females have more of these side effects than males, 5:27 particularly females that are over 65 years of age. 5:30 Basically, anybody over 65 years of age is going to have a higher risk 5:34 of having side effects from statins than people that are younger, 5:37 and that's really problematic 5:38 because people over 65 are almost always put on stand medications. 5:43 And again, they're the population group that's going to be most susceptible 5:46 because they have more of these damaged senescent mitochondria. 5:49 So their mitochondria are more fragile to begin with. 5:52 So when they start taking the statin medications 5:55 they further cause further damage to the mitochondria. 5:58 And therefore they have more of these major symptoms, 6:02 people with smaller body frames, particularly women with smaller body 6:05 frames, tend to have more of these statin side effects. 6:08 If you're taking multiple more medications, 6:10 you're going to be at greater risk. 6:12 If you're drinking a lot of alcohol, you have kidney or liver disease 6:15 or really important. 6:16 If you're vitamin D deficient, 6:19 you're much more likely to have major side effects from certain medications 6:23 because vitamin D is so critical for hormone function, so critical 6:27 for mitochondrial energy production, keeping inflammation under control. 6:30 So if you're deficient of vitamin D, your risk of having side 6:33 effects from statin medications just goes up pretty substantially. 6:37 So what can we do instead of relying on statins? 6:40 That's a question we got to be asking. 6:42 Well first off we have to question do we really need to lower 6:45 your LDL cholesterol. 6:46 You know, studies show that lowering LDL cholesterol has a very minimal effect
Why Cholesterol Matters 6:52 on reducing your risk of heart disease and stroke. 6:54 There may be some benefit to doing it for people that have already 6:58 had heart disease and strokes. 7:00 But you know what's more important? 7:01 Lowering inflammation in your body. 7:03 That's really the key. 7:05 You see, cholesterol is kind of like firefighters showing up. 7:09 It's a healing and repair compound in the body. 7:13 So it's kind of like if there if a house is on fire, the firefighters show up. 7:17 Now, it's not the firefighters that started the fire. 7:19 They're just there to help put out the fire. 7:22 Well, that's kind of what cholesterol does. 7:24 It's it's helping with creating scar tissue. 7:27 It's helping with healing cell membranes. 7:29 It's bringing all kinds of important cargo to the cell. 7:34 What we need to do 7:35 is not necessarily demonize the cholesterol and lower cholesterol. 7:38 We don't need to get rid of firemen if we want to have less fires. 7:42 What we need to do is stop the fires, stop the inflammation in the body. 7:45 So what can we do to do that? 7:46 Number one blood sugar stabilizing diet. 7:48 This is the most important thing 7:50 we want to make sure we're prioritizing good protein healthy fats right. 7:55 Making sure we're getting good quality 7:56 protein, 30 to 50g of protein per meal is what I recommend getting it from. 8:00 Things like grass fed beef, bison, lamb, poultry, 8:05 pasture raised eggs, as well as, wild caught fish. 8:09 Right. 8:09 So getting good quality protein, good healthy fats 8:11 from things like high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil, avocados, things 8:16 like that, and then lots of colorful fruits and vegetables. 8:19 Really trying to focus on a whole food based diet 8:21 that's high in protein, high and healthy fats 8:24 that's going to help stabilize your blood sugar, bring down insulin, help 8:27 your mitochondria use fat for fuel more effectively. 8:31 You can also throw in a lot of herbs things like basil, oregano, thyme,
Diet and Lifestyle Alternatives 8:35 sage, rosemary. 8:36 All of those things 8:37 help support mitochondrial function and help you burn fat for fuel. 8:40 Apple cider vinegar the compound in there acetic acid, has been shown 8:44 to help regenerate, healthy, or basically stimulate 8:48 something called my autophagy breakdown of old damaged mitochondria 8:52 and and and create new healthy, stress resilient mitochondria. 8:57 So if you've been on statins, taking something like apple cider vinegar 9:00 to help your body heal those mitochondria really, really good really important. 9:05 So taking a tablespoon apple cider vinegar once or twice a day 9:09 in water diluted in water 4 to 8oz of water 9:12 can be really, really helpful for stabilizing your blood sugar. 9:15 Turning back on healthy mitochondria. 9:17 Now there's a certain genotype. 9:19 It's called the ApoE e4 genotype. 9:23 It's roughly 25% of the population. 9:25 There's some researchers say they don't do well in a high saturated fat diet. 9:29 So for most people, I like a high saturated 9:32 fat diet, like 50% of your calories coming from saturated fats, from things 9:36 like grass fed, animal products, grass fed red meat or grass fed 9:40 butter, pasture raised eggs, coconut oil, getting a lot of saturated fat. 9:44 But if you're a ApoE e4, you want to get roughly 20% 9:48 or less of your fat calories from saturated fat, and instead really 9:53 prioritize things like high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados. 9:58 Those are going to get really good quality monounsaturated fats, 10:02 which you do want to avoid. 10:03 Is your seed oils, corn oil, soybean, safflower, cottonseed oil, peanut oil. 10:08 All those things are really toxic and inflammatory for the body. 10:11 They are going to cause high triglycerides, insulin resistance. 10:14 They're going to cause all kinds of problems. 10:15 In fact, when you're looking at your cholesterol, 10:17 the only thing you really need to look at LDL is not really that important. 10:21 What you want to look at is your triglyceride to HDL ratio. 10:25 How many triglycerides you have should be under 100, 10:29 and how many parts of HDL high density lipoprotein. 10:32 They call that the good cholesterol. 10:34 Do you have should be up over 50. 10:37 And your triglyceride HDL ratio should always be less than two 10:41 two parts triglyceride to one part HDL, 10:44 and really as close to one as possible. 10:47 So if you have like 70 triglycerides and 70 HDL that's ideal, right? 10:52 That's really good triglyceride HDL ratio. 10:55 It's really the most important thing 10:56 that we're looking at when we're looking at our overall cholesterol levels. 11:00 That tells me that 11:01 you don't have a lot of circulating fatty acids, which is important. 11:05 That means that you're more insulin sensitivity. 11:07 You're able to get nutrients 11:09 into the cell for energy, and you're able to burn fat effectively for fuel. 11:13 That's what it tells me, tells me 11:14 you're more metabolically flexible and metabolically healthy. 11:18 So we talked about blood sugar stabilizing diet. 11:20 What else can we do? 11:21 I'm a huge advocate of intermittent fasting. 11:24 Simple, easy thing to do. 11:26 Eat your meals in a, let's say an eight hour eating window, 11:29 maybe a 6 to 8 hour eating window every day from 10 a.m. 11:32 to 6 p.m. or 12 p.m. 11:34 to 6 p.m. 11:35 or 12 to 8, eat 2 to 3. Really good meals. 11:39 Don't snack blood sugar stabilizing meals high in protein, healthy 11:43 fats, and then outside of the meal times your fasting. 11:47 You're hydrating your body well. Drink a lot of water. 11:49 You can drink black coffee, herbal tea, but avoiding calories 11:53 during your fasting window, 11:55 which should be roughly 16 to 18 hours a day on most days. 11:59 If one day a week you eat in a 12 hour window, not a big deal. 12:03 Make the other days 16 to 18 hour fasting or meals in a 6 to 8 hour 12:08 eating window and get the benefits of intermittent fasting. 12:12 So better fat burning, better blood sugar stability, better, insulin sensitivity, 12:18 better mitochondrial health, autophagy where you're breaking down old damaged 12:22 cellular proteins and regenerating them into new, healthy cellular proteins. 12:27 You get all those great benefits.
Testing, Fasting, and Exercise 12:28 So make sure you're doing that regular exercise. 12:30 You know, I recommend 12:31 moving your body regularly trying to get at least 10,000 steps every day. 12:35 Also adding in resistance training, getting 15 to 20 minutes, 12:39 3 to 4 days a week of strength training for your whole body, upper body 12:44 as well as your lower body so you could do 12:46 two days a week of upper body, two days a week, a lower body. 12:50 However you want to do it, you only need about 15 to 20 minutes, 12:53 3 to 4 days a week, roughly about 60 minutes all together 12:56 split up throughout the week of strength training so you can build really good, 13:01 healthy muscle tissue, and that will help keep you metabolically healthy. 13:06 You also want to prioritize good sleep. 13:07 Make sure you're doing everything you can to optimize your sleep 13:11 hygiene and get really good regenerative sleep. 13:14 Also, get in the sun. 13:16 Believe it or not, getting in the sun 13:19 actually converts cholesterol into vitamin D. 13:22 People are not getting enough. 13:23 Sun may end up with high LDL cholesterol 13:26 because they're not converting 70 hydro cholesterol 13:31 into vitamin D, and so getting in the sun helps activate 13:35 that that cholesterol compound and turns it into 25 hydroxy vitamin D. 13:41 Last but not least, if you are concerned 13:45 about high LDL, watch your coffee. 13:48 Now, I'm not saying coffee is bad for you, okay? 13:51 Fat coffee has actually been shown to help stabilize your blood sugar, improve 13:56 insulin sensitivity, and improve your improve your overall metabolic health. 13:59 However, we know that unfiltered coffee like French press or espresso, it contains 14:04 these compounds called deter pines that increase cholesterol levels. 14:09 So you may end up 14:09 if you're drinking a lot of that, you may end up with high LDL cholesterol. 14:12 But it doesn't. 14:13 Again, it doesn't mean that you have poor metabolic health 14:16 or that you're an increased risk of heart disease, cardiovascular disease. 14:21 So ultimately the key again is making sure you're metabolically healthy, 14:25 keep your in your body very insulin sensitive. 14:28 Follow a blood sugar stabilizing diet and lifestyle. 14:31 Keep your toxic load down. 14:34 Make sure you're moving and building muscle on a regular basis. 14:37 And again the labs to look at the more important ones. 14:39 When we're looking at cholesterol is your triglyceride to HDL ratio. 14:43 Try to make sure that's always under two and ideally as close to one as possible. 14:47 If you throw in a fasting insulin test, that's another great one. 14:51 Making sure your insulin levels are under six. 14:54 And look at your inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein, for example. 14:58 Make sure that that's under two and ideally under one 15:03 to keep your inflammation levels down and under control. 15:06 If you do that, you're going to be totally fine. 15:08 You certainly don't need statin medications. 15:11 And here's more good news. 15:13 There is no withdrawal from coming off of statin medications. 15:16 So whereas, you know, different medications like blood pressure
Coming Off Statins and Final Advice 15:20 medications, in many cases blood sugar medications, antidepressants, 15:25 you need to wean off of them with the guidance of a practitioner 15:30 when it comes to statins, you don't actually have to do that. 15:33 There's no side effects of just coming off the SAT medications. 15:36 The only thing statins have really been shown to do 15:38 is lower cholesterol, but not actually significantly 15:41 reduce your risk of heart disease or dying of a heart attack. 15:45 So it's not something you need to be afraid of. 15:47 Of course, all my videos are just for educational purposes. 15:50 They're not meant to replace the advice of your physician. 15:55 But I will say, from my experience, most people have no major issue 15:59 coming off statin medications and just following 16:02 a metabolically healthy diet and lifestyle. 16:05 So hopefully you guys got a lot of value out of today's video. 16:08 Of course. 16:08 Check out the article, 16:09 the in-depth article on statin medications on doctor talkers.com. 16:13 We've got tons of great content there for you 16:16 and the best infographics in the world right there, doctor jokers.com search 16:20 for whatever it is that you're looking for of course. 16:22 Share this video with anybody that you know and that you care about. 16:25 And we'll see you on a future video training. 16:28 Be blessed.
Comments