The Vitamin C/Apple Pectin Cure for High Cholesterol
by Bill Sardi by Bill Sardi
Yet another time conventional medicine has admitted statin drugs are nearly worthless, but couch their remarks in language that blames patients for the problem. A new study claims if statin drug users would faithfully comply with the doctors’ orders and take statin drugs on a regular basis the relative risk for a heart attack would almost be cut in half (–47%). [Archives Internal Medicine 2009; 169(3):260-268]
The results of the study were declared "astonishing" by one cardiologist. The study results may be used to call for every American over age 50 to receive statin drugs, even if they are healthy and exhibit few risk factors for a heart attack.
Current guidelines published by National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence recommend that anyone estimated to have a greater than one-in-five chance of having a heart attack over a 10-year period should be taking a statin drug. Now, based upon this recent study, some experts want that threshold lowered to one-in-ten over ten years, which would mean millions more Americans would be talked into taking problematic cholesterol-lowering drugs.
The Obama Administration is said to embrace evidenced-based medicine, and doctors might be put upon to prescribe statin drugs even among healthy individuals. But this evidence appears to be pseudo-science. It would dramatically increase healthcare costs by billions of dollars.
The study does not mean 47 in 100 healthy users could potentially benefit from taking statin drugs. In hard numbers only a small percentage do because less than 3% of adults would experience a heart attack over this period of time and then the 47% reduction occurs within that 3%. So an estimated 99 in 100 who would be take the drug under revised guidelines might never experience a benefit. But the study does mean the drug has finally demonstrated life-saving potential. However, this benefit is only achieved at the highest most toxic dose!
Why don’t patients faithfully take statin drugs?
And why don’t statin drug users take their pills on a regular basis? Because statins are liver toxins! Patients don’t take their statin drugs because of the side effects! More than 30,000 individuals in the United States suffer from severe life-threatening symptoms that emanate from statin drug use. [Current Opinion Rheumatology 2008 Nov; 20(6):648-55] How does the FDA allow this class of drugs to remain on the market with no balancing reduction in mortality rates?
In one study 55% of statin drug users did not adhere to the medication schedule and another 10% never even started taking the statin drug provided to them by their health plan. [Cardiovascular Drugs Therapy 2007 Aug; 21(4):311-6] Another study shows that statin drug users often (28-62%) don’t achieve their target cholesterol numbers. [Current Medical Research Opinion 2009 Jan; 25(1):47-55]
Statins induce vitamin and antioxidant deficiencies
A surprising new study shows that the side effects associated with statin drugs may be caused by the fact statin drugs induce a vitamin D deficiency. The weekly provision of 50,000 units of vitamin D for 12 weeks more than doubles vitamin D blood concentration among vitamin D-deficient statin drug users and resolves muscle aches in 92% of subjects. [Translational Research 2009 Jan; 153(1):11-6] This study suggests statin drug users need to obtain periodic vitamin D tests and supplement their diet with vitamin D.
Statin drugs are already wide known to induce a shortage of the antioxidant coenzyme Q10 in heart tissues, which could be deleterious. [Physiological Research 2007; 56 Supplement 2:S49-54] Statin-drugs users should also take supplemental coenzyme Q10.
Prescribing a useless drug
Authors of this recent study do concede that other studies show statin drugs don’t reduce heart disease reduce mortality rates. [Lancet 2007; 369(9557):168-169] This means, up to this point, cardiologists have been prescribing statin drugs without scientific substantiation. Lives are at stake and modern medicine prescribes useless drugs.
The study’s authors also note that the results of the study may have nothing to do with cholesterol reduction and more to do with the type of patients who faithfully take their medicine. A study conducted years ago showed health benefits for individuals who dutifully took an inactive placebo pill.
That study showed regular users of one type of statin drug experienced a 5-year death rate of 15% vs 24.6% for patients who didn’t follow their statin drug regimens. But these numbers are virtually identical when a placebo tablet is taken. The faithful placebo users (take the pill 80% of the time) exhibit a 5-year death rate of 15.1% percent compared to 28.3% among patients who are non-compliant.
Is it cholesterol at all?
This writer has tirelessly asserted the medical literature points to the accumulation of calcium, not cholesterol, in the arteries as the chief cause of age-related coronary artery disease. The cholesterol ruse ensures the public is distracted with efforts to reduce circulating cholesterol numbers with no meaningful reduction in disease, thus ensuring high levels of disease for doctors to treat.
However, it is not likely that Americans will overcome their now-ingrained cholesterol phobia anytime soon. So the public at least ought to be informed of less problematic and more economical ways to reduce circulating cholesterol numbers.
The vitamin C cholesterol cure
Beginning in the 1960s Emil Ginter Ph.D. of Bratislava, Slovakia, who is the most prolific vitamin C researcher in the world, first described how animals, such as guinea pigs that do not naturally produce vitamin C in their liver as most other animals, experience a gradual accumulation of cholesterol in their blood serum and liver.
The reason for this is that vitamin C deficiency results in a decrease in the conversion rate of cholesterol to bile in the liver. [Science 1973 Feb 16; 179(74):702-4] Then cholesterol not only accumulates in the arteries but also the gall bladder, forming stones. [Annals New York Academy Science 1975 Sep 30; 258:410-21]
Vitamin C, widely known as an antioxidant, actually serves to induce oxidation of cholesterol and its conversion to bile, which facilitates its exit from the blood circulation. Provision of high-dose supplemental vitamin C to guinea pigs decreases cholesterol concentration in the blood plasma. [Annals New York Academy Science 1975 Sep 30; 258:410-21; International Journal Vitamin Nutrition Research Supplement 1982; 23:137-52]
Humans are in the same predicament as guinea pigs – they don’t synthesize vitamin C as most other animals do. Humans are totally dependent upon the diet for vitamin C. Dr. Ginter showed that the provision of 500-1000 milligrams of vitamin C per day significantly lowers cholesterol concentration in the blood circulation. [Cor Vasa 1992; 34(3):246-54] Americans consume only about 110 mg of vitamin C from their daily diet and often no more than an additional 60-120 mg from common multivitamins.
This effect can be enhanced by the addition of various bile acid sequestrants such as apple pectin. [International Journal Vitamin Nutrition Research Supplement 1982; 23:137-52 and 1979; 49(4):406-12]
