Cholesterol control minus side-effects

The USPST F recommends that all adults ages 40 to 75 should get screened for high cholesterol and consider taking statins to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease which often leads to strokes and heart attacks.

The drug is also now being recommended by other scientists for healthy people.

However, in the same report, Dr Roger Chou from the Oregon Health & Science University in the US, while himself promoting statins, drew attention to some serious side-effects of the drug including muscle pain, liver problems, memory issues and diabetes. These are only some of the many adverse side-effects.

It is well known that a major part of the biochemical process that produces cholesterol in the body is also required in the production of an important enzyme called coenzyme Q10 or CoQ10. CoQ10 is essential for the production of energy needed by all the cells of the body and without it there will be serious deterioration of important body functions.

Thus as the statins reduce the cholesterol levels by inhibiting its production, they also reduce the production of CoQ10 and this results in serious side-effects.

In fact in organs such as the heart, kidney and liver where CoQ10 is required at higher concentrations, the risk of organ damage is significantly increased as noted by Dr Chou. It follows therefore that any recommendation to take statins should be accompanied by a requirement to also take CoQ10 supplements in order to address the unavoidable CoQ10 reduction.

Rather than the use of statins, I wish to suggest what I believe is a decidedly better solution to the cholesterol problem. It has been confirmed in published clinical studies that adequate amounts of the nutrient vitamin B3 (niacin) reduces cholesterol in the body safely and effectively while leaving the CoQ10 levels unaffected.

This nutrient, unlike statins, is of relatively low toxicity and has few side-effects when not taken in excessive amounts. It is actually necessary for preventing the debilitating disease pellagra.

It is also inexpensive and widely available as an over-thecounter supplement and therefore will not be promoted by the pharmaceutical industry.

Its effectiveness for cholesterol control was first demonstrated by Dr William Parsons at the Mayo Clinic in the US in 1955, who later published his findings in a book, Cholesterol Control Without Diet! The Niacin Solution, Lilac Press, 1998.

In view of these facts, I challenge the advice that healthy people should also be given potentially harmful statins. Moreover I encourage statin users to investigate niacin on the Internet and raise the issue with their doctors since their health may be at risk.

Prof Stephan Gift Dean, Faculty of Engineering, UWI