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Statin Drugs Can Damage Your Nerves By
Dr. Al
Sears I’m
having a hard time believing it isn’t some kind of late April Fool’s
joke. I
just
read an article in The Journal of Family Practice,
a conventional doctor
magazine. The author seems amazed, telling readers that, hey, we’ve got
something very unusual here. There’s a guy who came in who had numbness
and
pain, and Are
they
kidding? These
side effects are happening all over the place. But
most
doctors don’t know because they don’t ask. If they did, they would find
that so
many people would answer, “Well, my doctor gave me Lipitor®, but after
I took
it my feet went numb.” Or, “My hands went numb.” Or, “My legs started
to hurt,
so I quit taking it.” Statin
neuropathy is something that’s very prominent. Neuropathy
is when nerve fibers throughout your body are damaged. Usually, it’s
caused by
a disease such as diabetes, or by trauma or injury. It’s
also
a very common condition if you take a statin drug. You
may
have heard statins cause a huge number of people to suffer fatigue,
muscle
cramping, and muscle weakness. Or even rhabdomyolysis,
when your muscle
cells burst and disintegrate. But
statins don’t just cause muscle problems. They damage nerves. Nerves
control the muscles in your body by electrical signals that make them
react in
specific ways. Nerve and muscle disorders cause your muscles to react
in
abnormal ways. Nerve
conduction studies test how well and how fast the nerves can send
electrical
signals. They use a statistic called “conduction velocity” measured in
meters
per second. Results
for the man in the article show his reactions are way below normal. For
example,
normal conduction velocity for peroneal nerves is greater than 44
meters per
second. The man’s velocity was only 40 at the head of his fibula, and
only 38
at the knee.1 And
conventional medicine has no clue this is happening. The article
reports:
“Neither the patient’s cardiologist, nor his general physician, was
aware of
any connection between statins and neuropathy.” I
believe
statins are damaging most people’s nerves who take them. But it’s
subclinical.
Meaning no one reports it because doctors never ask. The
drug
giant Merck lists 23 separate causes for neuropathy, none of which
includes
taking their statin drug, Zocor®. But
it
makes sense this is happening if you know what statin drugs do. You
see,
nerves work slower when there’s demyelination,
which means damage and
loss of the fatty insulation surrounding the nerve cell. And
do
you know what 75 percent of the insulation surrounding your nerves is
made
from? Cholesterol. It’s
a
staggeringly profound ignorance of the effect of treating the wrong
problem.
Cholesterol is not the bad guy. You
need
cholesterol to produce the protective coating around all your cells,
including
nerve cells. You need it to make all your sex hormones, for both men
and women.
And you especially need HDL to take away the plaque that may build up
in your
arteries, which can be part of the real cause of heart attacks. This
is why
statin therapy is terribly de-conditioning, and it’s the last thing in
the
world you want to do to someone who has a heart problem. Because
a
heart problem in the modern world is a combination of inflammation,
de-conditioning, obesity and oxidation. And all of those problems are
the
antithesis of exertion-induced changes. You
can
stop inflammation, reverse obesity and improve conditioning with
progressively intense,
short duration exercises. This alternative to aerobics and cardio
boosts
reserve capacity in your heart – critical for avoiding heart attacks –
and
raises HDL. But
with
statin drugs, doctors give somebody pain and stiffness and the
inability to
heal after a workout – all of which are major effects of statin drugs –
and
push them into the grave. I’ve
been
telling people for years that it doesn’t matter what your total
cholesterol
number is. All you have to do is raise your HDL and you’ll have
virtually zero
chance of heart disease. In
fact,
in one recent study, each 1mg/dl increase in HDL cholesterol resulted
in a 6%
lower risk of death from heart attack.2 To
raise
your HDL, and avoid being pushed to an early death by the side effects
of
statin drugs, here’s what to do: Step
1) Make your workouts more fun and challenging
– Intense, short periods
of exertion. One study looked at Navy personnel going through intense
training.
After only 5 days, their HDL had increased 31%.3 Step
2) Eat pure, clean foods
– Stay away from processed foods and junk foods,
especially refined sugars. Instead, eat lean proteins and unprocessed
carbs, such
as fruits and
vegetables. Step3)
Drink in moderation
–1to 2 drinks a day are proven to increase HDL.
A brand new study followed 4,168 doctors for 14 years. It found the
physicians
were able to increase their HDL by almost a full 1 mg/dl simply by
drinking 1
serving of alcohol every day.4 Step
4) Take a few good supplements
– Taking 50 mg of niacin
(vitamin B3) daily improves your HDL. Omega-3s increase HDL as well.
You can
find omega-3s in grass-fed beef, walnuts, olive oil, cold water fish,
and in
the world’s richest plant source of omega-3, Sacha Inchi oil. Sacha
Inchi has
almost 7 grams in each tablespoonful. Step
5) If you already have some numbness, take 600 mg per day of
alpha-lipoic acid.
Studies show it prevents or improves nerve conduction, blood
flow to nerves, and nerve activity and eases neuropathy symptoms.5 To Your Good Health,
Sources 1
Walter F. Coulson, MD.
"Statin Neuropathy?" The Journal of Family Practice. April 2011 •
Vol. 60, No. 04: 182-184. Note: The good folks at the FTC
require me to disclose that I am an affiliate of the companies that |
we didn’t know why. He didn’t have diabetes or any other
condition
known to cause it. It took 13 years to figure it out and it turned out
to be
this rare side effect of – can you believe it – a statin drug.