And yet:
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Plenty of people, who should know better, still deny the link. Maybe because it isn’t very sexy.
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Most doctors, in my experience, don’t understand, promote or encourage people to reduce risk. My mother’s doctor doesn’t care that her LDL-C is 180 mg/dl. When I went to my family doctor with LDL-C of >200 mg/dl at age 32, she pulled up the QRisk and said my 10y risk was low, so don’t worry.
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A lot of patients still are weirdly reluctant to treatment. I have friends, colleagues (biomedical researchers, scientists) with high LDL-C who insist they’ll handle it by just cutting back on some junk food.
I think people just don’t like this idea that something which is “natural” is also bad for you, and you can benefit from exogenous (and un-natural) molecules to fix it.
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Dr. Brad weighs in on preventing CVD.
He advocates for low dose statin + Ezetemibe. It’s good to see this.
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RonPut
#1929
Wow! So many here with high lipids! And a few who still argue that it doesn’t matter…, until it does.
As Carville said, “It’s The Diet, Stu**d!” Sure, drugs help, but more often than not they help at a cost, and I don’t mean financial cost, although that matters for the rest of society that has to support poor eating habits.
Unless one has hypercholeteromia or some other issue, there is no excuse for having super high lipids. It’s the heavy meat and dairy diet, and all the junk food that most seem to be eating.
Attia is full of BS, he is a charlatan who milks the obese with $150k+ consierge fees and often spouts unsupported claims that give comfort to those who know little and want to do little – pill popping is as easy as it gets. To an extent, so does Dayspring – he makes millions from pharma to push drugs, although recently he has scaled back a little on his insistence that dietary cholesterol doesn’t matter (it does, enough).
For the vast majority it’s as simple as eating a whole foods plant-based diet, and enough movement to maintain muscle and balance the calories. If it’s too boring for some, they will die prematurely, and will cost the rest of society dearly while dying.
Cheers.
adssx
#1930
Do you have any evidence that Dayspring is making “millions from pharma to push drugs”?
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AnUser
#1931
There are benefits to reducing levels even further than what can be achieved through diet alone:
A recent meta-analysis published in JAMA Cardiology suggests that it is both safe and effective to lower LDL below 70 mg/dL. The authors reviewed a large database of CVD patients with LDL levels averaging 70 mg/dL or less at the start of the studies. On average, there was a 20% drop in CVD risk seen for every 39 mg/dL drop in LDL cholesterol. In other words, a drop in LDL from 70 mg/dL down to 31 mg/dL was associated with 20% fewer CVD events such as heart attack or stroke.
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Diet and exercise, lifestyle and all non-drug interventions just optimize what you already have. It’s like the objective is to move across a distance as fast as possible, and you diligently train and eat to run as fast as you can. There’s a limit.
This site is dedicated to moving beyond that. It says: it is wise to optimize your non-drug interventions, but ultimately, you need an assist to move faster. A horse. A bicycle. A car. An airplane. A rocket. A wormhole transporter/jk/.
So, rapamycin.news - because rapamycin is the horse in this analogy… or at least we hope it is.
Diet/exercise will only get your ApoB so low. For more, you need the horses and the bicycles of something more: drugs - statins, ba, eze, pcsk9i.
One day we’ll get to the cars and airplanes of genetic manipulation and design, and rockets of man-machine bodies.
Until then, drugs, the ponies.
10 Likes
Very well said. As much as I love taking full advantage of what interventions we have available to us now, I want more funding, research and development of new longevity interventions that either slow down aging, reverse the damage of aging, both, or some unforeseen other thing we’ve not thought of.
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What cost when one has no side effects? Higher risk of diabetes? Not every statin has that. Long-long-long term risk that hasn’t been detected in half a century of usage?
Besides, many people can’t control their cholesterol with diet alone. The human body is not perfect and never was.
pill popping is as easy as it gets.
Because it works and telling people to “just exercise and eat better bro” has a success rate of <1%.
To an extent, so does Dayspring – he makes millions from pharma to push drugs,
Source?
For the vast majority it’s as simple as eating a whole foods plant-based diet, and enough movement to maintain muscle and balance the calories. If it’s too boring for some, they will die prematurely, and will cost the rest of society dearly while dying.
Or you take medication and more than mitigate all the damage.
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Paiva
#1935
Just sharing my personal experience in this topic:
Five days ago i put my second CORONARY STENT 14years after my first one in 2011.
All this 14years I keep my healthy routine (diet, exercise, good sleep, etc) and ldl colesterol around 60-70mg/dc taking statin, benpedoic acid (recently) and ezetimibe.
As my CVDs family history is bad ( my father and mother died of it); six months ago, afther read dr Peter Atilla book OUTLIVE, I change statins to pcsk9 inibitor. Since then, my LDL droped to 28mg/dc on the last sample days ago. I hope, keeping this “aggresive number”, stay out for another stent… Im male, 73y, BMI 20,6.
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RonPut
#1936
Sure, a quick search finds this article that mentions Dayspring:
"GlaxoSmithKline paid Dayspring $203,200 from January 2009 to June 2010, making him the second-highest earner in New Jersey, according to the database. He said he frequently lectures on Lovaza, which is “the only FDA-approved, prescription-strength fish oil available.”
Data is really hard to find, because to avoid reporting, pharma companies often will sponsor an event and pay the organizer, and the organizer then funnels money to the speakers, without reporting requirements. The Lovaza was a screw up and found itself in the papers. Daysrping speaks constantly, and doesn’t do it for free.
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Then why does Dayspring shill statins+ezetimibe as a first-line treatment instead of PCSK9i and BE? Those are dirt cheap, generic and don’t have a big profit-margin. Just asking questions.
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RonPut
#1938
Thanks, I am aware of these and other studies. But the subjects all with established ASCVD, predominantly obese, with high mortality risk. Most are older males with likely crappy diets and sub-100 LDL driven down and kept low with medication. In those subjects, lowering LDL beyond 70 with medication appears to be beneficial. at least in the less than 3 years they were followed.
But I doubt that we can draw any conclusions about healthy subjects, without risk factors and with LDL of 70, who have radically different physiology.
I am not arguing against using any drugs or supplements to try and enhance one’s health and longevity chances. My point was that it was surprising to see so many terrible lipid panel results and at the same time to read responces that argue that high cholesterol doesn’t matter, or focus exclusively on drug remedies, without addressing the lifestyle that got them to this point.
Bottom line is that a combination of a whole foods, plant-based diet will keep you as healthy as possible, and then if there is a drug or a supplement that is shown to promote healthspan or longevity beyond such a baseline, sure, it can certainly be added to one’s regimen.
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RonPut
#1939
Well, just in the US, the statins market is pushing $5 billion. Dayspring also recommends PCSK9 (a $1 billion market in the US). Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that people shouldn’t use these. I am saying that people shouldn’t let themselves get to the point where they should be using them.
I feel sorry for the people who continue to respond to folks like this, it must be exhausting.
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Healthy diet, sleep, exercise, hydration, etc… are all fantastic and they will get you to an average healthy lifespan somewhere in the 90s and maybe 100s. That’s all good. We’re trying to boost our chances of doing better than that. In order to do that, you need pharmaceutical assistance.
One of the most important areas is in the prevention of arteriosclerosis. A very healthy person who does all the right things for their lifestyle will in most cases still develop arteriosclerosis without pharmaceutical aid. Ezetemibe should be the first line IMHO.
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AnUser
#1942
That’s what led to a reduction in their heart attacks - the lower LDL-C levels, even when they were already relatively low. There is ample genetic evidence suggesting that LDL-C is an independent causal factor, regardless of other risk factors being well-managed. The logic follows: less of the cause means less disease, and slower progression of atherosclerosis, even at very low levels.
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Bicep
#1944
Well, it’s not over the couner but if you ever buy from IndiaMart they’ll never stop offering to sell you anything you want ever again.
I pay €15.50 for 30 combination tablets of Rovastatin + Ezetimide 10/10. PCSK9i is very expensive.
