Let us, for the sake of illustration, imagine a crime scene. At this crime scene is a victim who is alive but unconscious and thus unable to speak. The paramedics are working tirelessly to tend to the fallen soul as a crowd of witnesses and on -lookers gather. When the police finally arrive they begin arresting the paramedics, witnesses and the on-lookers just for being at the scene. In the meantime the true culprit goes unnoticed and is allowed to continue to victimize others. If you are anything like me a sense of injustice swept over you as you pondered this scenario as it should but this is how we treat cholesterol. Cholesterol is often (but not always...we'll get to that) the unwitting witness or even the paramedic that gets blamed for doing something it had no part in while the true villain, inflammation, gets away Scot-free to continue its reign of terror. By the way, in the illustration the silent victim is our cardiovascular system.
Inflammation our friend, Inflammation our foe
Let's be fair about inflammation before we go much further. Inflammation is a natural and necessary bodily function. It serves as a marker so the immune system can know where the bad guys are. Without inflammation pathogens in the body could wonder freely and do massive damage. While acute inflammation is a natural and necessary process chronic inflammation is a killer. What causes chronic inflammation? A whole host of things actually like highly processed foods, simple carbs, too much protein (especially from animal sources), environmental toxins, medications, alcohol, etc., etc. Chronic inflammation is extremely damaging to the cardiovascular system and cholesterol has shouldered most of the blame for the last 40-50 years. And why not? If you were responsible for generating $31 billion a year in sales you would be the fall guy forever! In addition, chronic inflammation is a silent, painless killer much like hypertension and no amount of cholesterol lowering drugs can save you from it (this point will be further illustrated when the true nature of statin drugs are discussed).
Oxidative Stress and Free Radicals
Free radical is probably a term you are now familiar with but just in case you're not a brief description follows. When it comes to free radicals it helps to think of them as a pack of teenage boys at the mall roaming around just waiting to hit on receptive looking female that approaches. The whole while they are generally annoying not only the girls but anyone in the vicinity who may be watching. This pack of boys begin to upset the whole mall experience with anyone they come into contact with. That is a nuts and bolts metaphor for free radicals. They create massive amounts of inflammation and just mess up everything.
In the end chronic inflammation is of much more concern than cholesterol ever was generally. There is one scenario where cholesterol can be a bad actor but that occasion is almost exclusively dependent on free radicals and oxidative stress (imagine that). We will continue to move forward through the true story of cholesterol and cover statin drugs in particular and what they do us!
Inflammation our friend, Inflammation our foe
Let's be fair about inflammation before we go much further. Inflammation is a natural and necessary bodily function. It serves as a marker so the immune system can know where the bad guys are. Without inflammation pathogens in the body could wonder freely and do massive damage. While acute inflammation is a natural and necessary process chronic inflammation is a killer. What causes chronic inflammation? A whole host of things actually like highly processed foods, simple carbs, too much protein (especially from animal sources), environmental toxins, medications, alcohol, etc., etc. Chronic inflammation is extremely damaging to the cardiovascular system and cholesterol has shouldered most of the blame for the last 40-50 years. And why not? If you were responsible for generating $31 billion a year in sales you would be the fall guy forever! In addition, chronic inflammation is a silent, painless killer much like hypertension and no amount of cholesterol lowering drugs can save you from it (this point will be further illustrated when the true nature of statin drugs are discussed).
Oxidative Stress and Free Radicals
Free radical is probably a term you are now familiar with but just in case you're not a brief description follows. When it comes to free radicals it helps to think of them as a pack of teenage boys at the mall roaming around just waiting to hit on receptive looking female that approaches. The whole while they are generally annoying not only the girls but anyone in the vicinity who may be watching. This pack of boys begin to upset the whole mall experience with anyone they come into contact with. That is a nuts and bolts metaphor for free radicals. They create massive amounts of inflammation and just mess up everything.
In the end chronic inflammation is of much more concern than cholesterol ever was generally. There is one scenario where cholesterol can be a bad actor but that occasion is almost exclusively dependent on free radicals and oxidative stress (imagine that). We will continue to move forward through the true story of cholesterol and cover statin drugs in particular and what they do us!
