Are your statins robing you of CoQ10 and causing dementia?  Cholesterol- lowering medications are also known as “statins”.  You might know them by brand names like Lipitor (atorvastatin), Mevacor (lovastatin), and Crestor (rosuvastatin).  Medical doctors often prescribe them for patients with high cholesterol indicators.  What they don’t tell you and might not even know, is that they have serious side effects and cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease!

Scaring in the artery walls is the true culprit of heart disease.  Cholesterol plays a very important role in your body and is necessary for good health.  When your arteries get scarred by chlorine, it leaves openings in the walls of your arteries for plaque to build up and cause a constriction of blood flow. High cholesterol may be natural for your body and lowering it can adversely affect your health. 

Statin drugs deplete your CoQ10 enzyme which is essential to your heart health and muscle function.  This depletion can lead to fatigue, muscle weakness, soreness, and eventually heart failure.  You may benefit from taking a CoQ10 supplement if you are taking a statin drug.  I urge you to have a discussion with your doctor or trusted pharmacist regarding this information. 

Statin drugs have also been linked to memory loss and false diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.  I personally know two elderly people that have had this side effect.  Both my grandfather and my neighbor had very quick witted minds.  Soon after starting their statin drugs, both suffered short term memory loss.  My grandfather was even prescribed Aricept for Alzheimer’s disease when my grandmother complained!

The moral of the story here is, take control of your health!  Physicians are well meaning people just like you and I.  However, they only know what they are taught in medical school and what the drug reps tell them.  It would be impossible for them to know every detail about every drug available.  Before I start getting hate mail, there are some doctors that will continue their education beyond medical school and be active in keeping up with new information.  Those doctors are hard to find due to the nature of their practice.  Law suits, over-scheduling, and insurance constraints tend to consume their time. 

If you suspect that you may be experiencing these side effects, I would suggest that you make an appointment with a local Naturopath.  There are several natural solutions to lowering your cholesterol or improving your artery health.  You can start by first asking for a test (Carotid Artery Ultrasound) that measures the health of the arteries and can give you a wealth of information to the future of your overall health.  Many supplements like Niacin and Omega-3 krill oil are even statistically better at lowering cholesterol than statins.  Studies show that statins only lower your “bad cholesterol” by 20% and sometimes, not even at all, when associated with heredity!  It might possibly be that your cholesterol levels are NATURAL for your body!  Don’t let yourself by put into the tiny box called “practicing medicine”.  Take control of your health and give yourself some health freedom!

For supporting information and references found in this article and other helpful articles on natural health, go to www.naturalhealthclick.com