Your Brain Needs Cholesterol to Function: The Hidden Dangers of Cholesterol Medications

Statins and Their Hidden Risks 0:00

Hey, in today's video, I'm talking about the hidden dangers of cholesterol medications. Cholesterol medications, in particular. Statin drugs are some of the most commonly prescribed medications in the world, but they could be increasing your risk of type two diabetes, dementia, and Alzheimer's. You see statin drugs again, there are some of the most commonly prescribed medications. They're used to lower your bad cholesterol, your LDL levels, and supposedly reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, and stroke.

The unfortunate reality is that they don't meaningfully reduce your risk of heart disease. And studies actually show they increase your overall risk of developing muscle loss, called sarcopenia, lowered libido and erectile dysfunction, as well as metabolic diseases such as type two diabetes and fatty liver disease, as well as neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's. What's the reason for this? Well, statins have been shown to decrease mitochondrial respiratory function and increase oxidative stress and damage to the mitochondria.

This results in lowered cellular energy production. Ultimately, when we have damaged mitochondria, we're not going to be able to burn fat effectively for fuel. We're going to create more inflammation in our body, and it's going to accelerate the aging process leading to all forms of chronic disease. So what are statin drugs? Well, statins are a type of medication that's commonly used

How Statins Affect Mitochondria 1:32

to lower low density lipoprotein or LDL. We call that, you know, many people in society call that bad cholesterol. And supposedly that reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke and prevent cardiovascular disease from getting worse. If you lower these LDL cholesterol. There are seven types of satin drugs available on the market today that are currently approved by the FDA. They include flu, statin, or Lipitor. They include private call Zocor. They include, Crestor, which is one of the most common ones that are out there.

You see, these stands are the most commonly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs in the world. But there's some important things we need to understand about cholesterol. Number one is it's essential for cellular function. And your brain is roughly 30% cholesterol. Cholesterol is also necessary for the production of key hormones. Testosterone, progesterone and estrogen. Low cholesterol leads to fatigue, hormone problems, weakness, memory loss, and dementia. So we have to ask this question how do statin drugs work?

Well, they block the activity of the liver enzyme HMG CoA reductase. That's in charge of cholesterol production. They also while they're blocking HMG CoA reductase, they also block the synthesis of coenzyme Q10, which acts as a mobile electron carrier, facilitating the transfer of electrons from complex one to complex three in the electron transport chain. For cellular energy production, we know statins can directly inhibit the activity of the respiratory chain complexes one, three, and four, which are involved in energy production through oxidative phosphorylation.

Basically, they stop our mitochondria from producing cellular energy. They drive up oxidative stress and damage mitochondrial function. We know statins can lead to an increase in what we call reactive oxygen species. Ros in the mitochondria, and again, that damages mitochondria components and impairs their function. They also dis regulate calcium metabolism in the mitochondria, which can affect mitochondrial function, and that can contribute to higher levels of oxidative stress and muscle damage.

Some studies have shown that statins can induce mitochondrial apoptosis, potentially contributing to muscle cell damage.

Common Side Effects and Risk Factors 3:56

In fact, that's one of the main side effects is this myopathy, where people have major pain in their muscles. And that's because of this, this concept where they'll actually increase apoptosis in the mitochondria of the muscle cells, causing muscle cell damage. They also impair mitochondrial biogenesis. We know that statins are associated with a decrease in the ability to form new, healthy mitochondria. So we end up with just damaged, senescent old mitochondria. And that interferes with your ability to burn fat for fuel.

And that potentially impacts energy production. Obviously, you're not able to produce as much energy in the cell. And the cells forced to survive on glucose metabolism, which drives up more oxidative stress and inflammation in the body. So what are the most common side effects of using statin drugs? Well, there's something called muscle weakness or Samms, which is statin induced muscular dystrophy. Right. And so basically the muscle system is not able to function well because the mitochondria are so damaged.

Also, things like depression, erectile dysfunction, memory loss, digestive problems, high blood sugar, type two diabetes, headaches, low platelets trouble sleeping and skin problems. Now, here are some of the main risk factors for getting those side effects. Females have more of these side effects than males, particularly females that are over 65 years of age. Basically, anybody over 65 years of age is going to have a higher risk of having side effects from statins than people that are younger, and that's really problematic because people over 65 are almost always put on stand medications.

And again, they're the population group that's going to be most susceptible because they have more of these damaged senescent mitochondria. So their mitochondria are more fragile to begin with. So when they start taking the statin medications they further cause further damage to the mitochondria. And therefore they have more of these major symptoms, people with smaller body frames, particularly women with smaller body frames, tend to have more of these statin side effects. If you're taking multiple more medications, you're going to be at greater risk.

If you're drinking a lot of alcohol, you have kidney or liver disease or really important. If you're vitamin D deficient, you're much more likely to have major side effects from certain medications because vitamin D is so critical for hormone function, so critical for mitochondrial energy production, keeping inflammation under control. So if you're deficient of vitamin D, your risk of having side effects from statin medications just goes up pretty substantially. So what can we do instead of relying on statins?

That's a question we got to be asking. Well first off we have to question do we really need to lower your LDL cholesterol. You know, studies show that lowering LDL cholesterol has a very minimal effect

Why Cholesterol Matters 6:49

on reducing your risk of heart disease and stroke. There may be some benefit to doing it for people that have already had heart disease and strokes. But you know what's more important? Lowering inflammation in your body. That's really the key. You see, cholesterol is kind of like firefighters showing up. It's a healing and repair compound in the body. So it's kind of like if there if a house is on fire, the firefighters show up. Now, it's not the firefighters that started the fire. They're just there to help put out the fire.

Well, that's kind of what cholesterol does. It's it's helping with creating scar tissue. It's helping with healing cell membranes. It's bringing all kinds of important cargo to the cell. What we need to do is not necessarily demonize the cholesterol and lower cholesterol. We don't need to get rid of firemen if we want to have less fires. What we need to do is stop the fires, stop the inflammation in the body. So what can we do to do that? Number one blood sugar stabilizing diet. This is the most important thing we want to make sure we're prioritizing good protein healthy fats right.

Making sure we're getting good quality protein, 30 to 50g of protein per meal is what I recommend getting it from. Things like grass fed beef, bison, lamb, poultry, pasture raised eggs, as well as, wild caught fish. Right. So getting good quality protein, good healthy fats from things like high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil, avocados, things like that, and then lots of colorful fruits and vegetables. Really trying to focus on a whole food based diet that's high in protein, high and healthy fats that's going to help stabilize your blood sugar, bring down insulin, help your mitochondria use fat for fuel more effectively.

You can also throw in a lot of herbs things like basil, oregano, thyme,

Diet and Lifestyle Alternatives 8:34

sage, rosemary. All of those things help support mitochondrial function and help you burn fat for fuel. Apple cider vinegar the compound in there acetic acid, has been shown to help regenerate, healthy, or basically stimulate something called my autophagy breakdown of old damaged mitochondria and and and create new healthy, stress resilient mitochondria. So if you've been on statins, taking something like apple cider vinegar to help your body heal those mitochondria really, really good really important.

So taking a tablespoon apple cider vinegar once or twice a day in water diluted in water 4 to 8oz of water can be really, really helpful for stabilizing your blood sugar. Turning back on healthy mitochondria. Now there's a certain genotype. It's called the ApoE e4 genotype. It's roughly 25% of the population. There's some researchers say they don't do well in a high saturated fat diet. So for most people, I like a high saturated fat diet, like 50% of your calories coming from saturated fats, from things like grass fed, animal products, grass fed red meat or grass fed butter, pasture raised eggs, coconut oil, getting a lot of saturated fat.

But if you're a ApoE e4, you want to get roughly 20% or less of your fat calories from saturated fat, and instead really prioritize things like high polyphenol, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados. Those are going to get really good quality monounsaturated fats, which you do want to avoid. Is your seed oils, corn oil, soybean, safflower, cottonseed oil, peanut oil. All those things are really toxic and inflammatory for the body. They are going to cause high triglycerides, insulin resistance. They're going to cause all kinds of problems.

In fact, when you're looking at your cholesterol, the only thing you really need to look at LDL is not really that important. What you want to look at is your triglyceride to HDL ratio. How many triglycerides you have should be under 100, and how many parts of HDL high density lipoprotein. They call that the good cholesterol. Do you have should be up over 50. And your triglyceride HDL ratio should always be less than two two parts triglyceride to one part HDL, and really as close to one as possible.

So if you have like 70 triglycerides and 70 HDL that's ideal, right? That's really good triglyceride HDL ratio. It's really the most important thing that we're looking at when we're looking at our overall cholesterol levels. That tells me that you don't have a lot of circulating fatty acids, which is important. That means that you're more insulin sensitivity. You're able to get nutrients into the cell for energy, and you're able to burn fat effectively for fuel. That's what it tells me, tells me you're more metabolically flexible and metabolically healthy.

So we talked about blood sugar stabilizing diet. What else can we do? I'm a huge advocate of intermittent fasting. Simple, easy thing to do. Eat your meals in a, let's say an eight hour eating window, maybe a 6 to 8 hour eating window every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. or 12 to 8, eat 2 to 3. Really good meals. Don't snack blood sugar stabilizing meals high in protein, healthy fats, and then outside of the meal times your fasting. You're hydrating your body well. Drink a lot of water.

You can drink black coffee, herbal tea, but avoiding calories during your fasting window, which should be roughly 16 to 18 hours a day on most days. If one day a week you eat in a 12 hour window, not a big deal. Make the other days 16 to 18 hour fasting or meals in a 6 to 8 hour eating window and get the benefits of intermittent fasting. So better fat burning, better blood sugar stability, better, insulin sensitivity, better mitochondrial health, autophagy where you're breaking down old damaged cellular proteins and regenerating them into new, healthy cellular proteins.

You get all those great benefits.

Testing, Fasting, and Exercise 12:28

So make sure you're doing that regular exercise. You know, I recommend moving your body regularly trying to get at least 10,000 steps every day. Also adding in resistance training, getting 15 to 20 minutes, 3 to 4 days a week of strength training for your whole body, upper body as well as your lower body so you could do two days a week of upper body, two days a week, a lower body. However you want to do it, you only need about 15 to 20 minutes, 3 to 4 days a week, roughly about 60 minutes all together split up throughout the week of strength training so you can build really good, healthy muscle tissue, and that will help keep you metabolically healthy.

You also want to prioritize good sleep. Make sure you're doing everything you can to optimize your sleep hygiene and get really good regenerative sleep. Also, get in the sun. Believe it or not, getting in the sun actually converts cholesterol into vitamin D. People are not getting enough. Sun may end up with high LDL cholesterol because they're not converting 70 hydro cholesterol into vitamin D, and so getting in the sun helps activate that that cholesterol compound and turns it into 25 hydroxy vitamin D.

Last but not least, if you are concerned about high LDL, watch your coffee. Now, I'm not saying coffee is bad for you, okay? Fat coffee has actually been shown to help stabilize your blood sugar, improve insulin sensitivity, and improve your improve your overall metabolic health. However, we know that unfiltered coffee like French press or espresso, it contains these compounds called deter pines that increase cholesterol levels. So you may end up if you're drinking a lot of that, you may end up with high LDL cholesterol.

But it doesn't. Again, it doesn't mean that you have poor metabolic health or that you're an increased risk of heart disease, cardiovascular disease. So ultimately the key again is making sure you're metabolically healthy, keep your in your body very insulin sensitive. Follow a blood sugar stabilizing diet and lifestyle. Keep your toxic load down. Make sure you're moving and building muscle on a regular basis. And again the labs to look at the more important ones. When we're looking at cholesterol is your triglyceride to HDL ratio.

Try to make sure that's always under two and ideally as close to one as possible. If you throw in a fasting insulin test, that's another great one. Making sure your insulin levels are under six. And look at your inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein, for example. Make sure that that's under two and ideally under one to keep your inflammation levels down and under control. If you do that, you're going to be totally fine. You certainly don't need statin medications. And here's more good news.

There is no withdrawal from coming off of statin medications. 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, you need to wean off of them with the guidance of a practitioner when it comes to statins, you don't actually have to do that. There's no side effects of just coming off the SAT medications. The only thing statins have really been shown to do is lower cholesterol, but not actually significantly reduce your risk of heart disease or dying of a heart attack. So it's not something you need to be afraid of. Of course, all my videos are just for educational purposes.

They're not meant to replace the advice of your physician. But I will say, from my experience, most people have no major issue coming off statin medications and just following a metabolically healthy diet and lifestyle. So hopefully you guys got a lot of value out of today's video. Of course. Check out the article, the in-depth article on statin medications on doctor talkers.com. We've got tons of great content there for you and the best infographics in the world right there, doctor jokers.com search for whatever it is that you're looking for of course.

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