Unlocking Cholesterol: The Real Truth Behind Statins

Unlocking Cholesterol: The Real Truth Behind Statins 

In our latest episode, we dive into a topic that affects millions: the use of statins and their impact on cholesterol management. If you or a loved one is taking statins, this episode is crucial for understanding the potential risks and exploring natural alternatives.

Cholesterol has long been demonized in the medical community, often leading to unnecessary panic. However, cholesterol plays a vital role in our bodies, serving as a key component in cell structure and essential for brain health. In fact, our brains are made up of approximately 40% cholesterol, highlighting its importance for cognitive function and overall health.

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the two types of cholesterol: LDL, which delivers cholesterol from the liver to cells, and HDL, which returns it back to the liver. Understanding the balance between these two is essential. High levels of LDL may indicate that your body is in need of cholesterol due to infections or other health issues, rather than being a straightforward indicator of poor health.

The episode also sheds light on the mechanism of statins, which inhibit the enzyme HMG CoA reductase, reducing the body's ability to produce cholesterol. This can lead to a deficiency in CoQ10, a crucial molecule for energy production, particularly in the heart and muscles. If you're experiencing fatigue or muscle weakness while on statins, this episode may provide some answers.

We explore natural alternatives to managing cholesterol, emphasizing the benefits of intermittent fasting. By understanding how our bodies produce and break down cholesterol, listeners can take proactive steps to maintain healthy levels. Eating frequency plays a critical role in this process, and intermittent fasting can optimize cholesterol management.

Additionally, we discuss the importance of dietary fats, particularly the balance between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Consuming an appropriate ratio of these fats can influence LDL composition and plaque formation in arteries, making it a vital aspect of heart health.

This episode is not just informative; it's a call to action for listeners to engage with their health and seek alternatives to statins. Remember, it's essential to consult with your physician before making any changes to your medication or health regimen.

Tune in to the episode for a comprehensive understanding of cholesterol, the risks associated with statins, and how you can take charge of your health naturally!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another exciting version of the Chip Talks podcast. Today, we're going to save some lives. How about that? Wouldn't that be fun? Well, let's do that.

Do you know someone? Or are you, or do you have a loved one who's taking statins? Well, then, this will be a pretty important podcast for you. We will give you some important information and suggestions on things you can do on your own to help with this issue. But this is a super important issue that's affecting a lot of our health right now.

If you're on statins, if you love someone who's on statins, if your mom and dad are on statins, this will be a pretty important podcast for you. Okay?

Let's talk a little bit about what cholesterol does in your body

Let's start by talking a little about what cholesterol is and what it does because it's pretty well demonized in the medical society. So you think, cholesterol. Ooh, cholesterol, that's a bad thing, right? That's what we all think. Oh, cholesterol is a little high. That's a bad thing. Well, what does cholesterol do in your body? Let's break this down. Let's demystify it a little bit. Let's talk about what cholesterol does. What cholesterol does in our bodies is cool when you need structural repair.

When a cell needs structural repair, or your brain needs structural repair, you need cholesterol. Cholesterol is kind of the brick-and-mortar in our bodies. It's what every cell needs for structural integrity to build things. It's a major component of every single cell in our brains. Our brains contain about 40% cholesterol. It is pretty important structurally to the old noggin. And what else can we say about cholesterol? It's just really important to our body. If you're infected with something, let's say you have a hook-rounder pinworm infection or H. Pylori infection, or your Epstein Barr, you've been infected, like most of us are, with some of these pathogens that seem to be getting all of us. Well, what happens? Well, those pathogens want to live off of you. They want to eat you. They want to destroy your tissue, right?

They're eating you. And as they're eating you, you need to heal. Well, guess what? You need to heal. Cholesterol. Cholesterol. If someone has high cholesterol, there are other reasons. But again, statistically, they're not significant. If someone has high cholesterol, that means they're infected. That means their body is working to heal something. That means they've got cells whistling up; we need a bunch of cholesterol. Bring us some cholesterol. Right.

We measure that. How is that measured? LDLs. LDL measures the delivery of cholesterol from the liver to cells. What does that mean if your LDL is high? Well, it means your body just needs a lot of cholesterol.

And certainly, there's too high, and certainly, there's an over the line and, oh, no, it is too high. But if you're infected with something like most of us are, 95% of us have some kind of infection, and guess what? Your LDL will go up because of that infection. The medical system will never tell you this. And again, it's in their best interest to leave you naked and afraid here, leave you unknowledgeable, because you're just going to listen to them and take statins, right?

But that may or may not be the case. You may or may not need statins, as I'm saying. If that number is high today, it might be lower tomorrow based on your infection rate. Certainly, I can give you a bug to infect you, and your LDL will go up. LDL is more of an indication of infection to me. And if somebody has high LDL as compared to, let's say, previous tests, then they're more infected than they were on previous tests. And if it's lower, they're less infected than on previous tests; their body demands less or more cholesterol.

So your body just needs cholesterol, and you should whistle for it. And it is delivered in LDLs. After the cholesterol is delivered, it returns to the liver in HDLs. And these are also measured. A measure of dysfunction in this whole mess might be if you had high LDL and low HDLs, and one might wonder what is happening to all your HDLs. Where are they getting sucked up? How are they getting destroyed? Why are they not coming back to the liver? So that would be a concern. This is why, in cholesterol tests, the ratio is more important than the actual numbers themselves.

So if you're delivering and reclaiming at a pretty good rate and have a good cycle going on, that's okay. If you're not, then maybe that's a cause for concern. But statins are not the answer. My goodness. What do statins do? Let's walk through what statins do inside of you. So there's a switch that we all have, which is kind of, let's say, cholesterol on, cholesterol off. The switch is called hm, HMG, and COA reductase.

So when cholesterol is on, that is activated, and when cholesterol is off, that is inhibited. Statins inhibit that enzyme, HMG-CoA, HM reductase. That's exactly what: the mechanism of action, the pharmacological action of a statin, and whether they inhibit that enzyme. Well, that will certainly reduce your body's ability to produce cholesterol. You can't produce any; any cholesterol you're used to would have to be reclaimed and reused. The other thing is that it cuts out your body's ability to build CoQ10. Has anybody ever heard of CoQ10 out there? CoQ10 is an extremely important molecule in how we produce energy. And, if you don't have enough CoQ10, you're going to be energetically deficient, your muscles will be tired, you will get weak, and you will have fatigue. All different things will begin to happen if you can't produce CoQ10. But the worst of them all is your heart will become less efficient than it was. Coq 10 is super important in how we produce energy. The biggest organ producers of energy are our brain and our heart. And if your heart can't produce energy efficiently, that's life-threatening. I mean, that could be critical. You could die of that.

So what am I saying? What am I saying by all this? Well, what I'm saying is if you're taking a statin and you're tired, your muscles are weak, you need to stop taking that. Well, I can't say that. You need to go to your doctor and tell your doctor what's going on. And hopefully, your doctor will immediately tell you to stop taking that statin drug. Why? Because it's wrecking your heart, it's hurting your ability to make CoQ10.

Every time you take a statin, you are hurting your ability to make CoQ10.

Again, every time you take a statin, you are hurting your ability to make CoQ10. I could do a podcast on the importance of CoQ10 and mitochondrial function. But if you don't have enough Coq10, you won't be Efficient in energy production. And you'll feel this in muscle weakness, fatigue, and energy. Your heart, though, will not be as efficient in producing energy as it needs to be. It will also experience oxidative stress and other things, further damaging cells. Without CoQ10, it is not a good thing to deny our body. Okay?

Statins do that. The other thing that statins do is deny your body the brick-and-mortar that it needs to be able to repair things structurally. You need cholesterol if you need to work on your brain, heart, liver, or any major organ. And if you're taking a statin, that will greatly threaten your ability to get cholesterol to those organ systems or tissue systems. That's great, Chip. Gee, you just blew up my whole cholesterol thing.

I don't know what to say to my doctor now. And again, if you guys have a chat, the AI tool, chat, download chat, and just ask it about statins and health and muscle fatigue and weakness and whether they are a good thing or not, and have a dialogue and discussion with chat about statin, and then take that information to your doctor, whoever, whatever doctor is prescribing you those statins, Take that information to them and then also whip this through, when you get a chance. Here's a cool thing. Can we do this on our own? Can we help ourselves on our own with high cholesterol? But what does high cholesterol even mean? Are there natural processes, let's say, to help us manage all this? Oh, Chip, your cholesterol is a little high. I don't care because I know there's a natural process, okay? That natural process is intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting. Well, let's walk this back. When you eat, you inhibit something called M. AMPK. AMPK is the master switch in energy, okay? AMPK is also associated with HMG CoA reductase. There is a lot of science there. But basically, when you're in a. Let's break it down and make it easy when you're in a fed state.

When you've just eaten, and for five hours after you've eaten, you make cholesterol. Your body is making cholesterol. Five hours after eating, you flip a switch and break down that cholesterol. And that's super important, right? You break that cholesterol down into estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. Into cortisol and into a bunch of very important things that we need. So that process, that fasting, feeding process, I've eaten, so I know that for five hours I'm going to make cholesterol. And then, five hours after I've eaten, as long as I don't eat again, I will start breaking down that cholesterol into very useful molecules that I need as a brick and mortar, hormone precursors, and estrogen or steroid precursors. Super important stuff, right? Well, what happens if I'm taking a statin? Well, if I'm taking a statin, first of all, that, that whole, all of that is interrupted. All that whole process is interrupted.

I'm also interrupting my ability to build CoQ10, which I build when in a fed state. Let's look at this from two different perspectives. Suppose you don't know any of this and are a breakfast, lunch, and dinner person. In that case, you're going to eat at, let's say, 8:00 am and about the time you're getting, and you're going to start making cholesterol at 8 am. When you're getting ready to start breaking down that cholesterol, five hours after you've eaten, about 1 pm, you're going to eat lunch. Then you're going to reset that timer, and you're going to continue to make cholesterol until about 5 o'clock, and then you're going to eat dinner. You're going to reset that timer, and you're going to continue to make cholesterol until, I don't know, midnight or so in the middle of the night when you are finally five hours past your last meal, and then you'll start breaking it down.

Why do we have high cholesterol? One reason is that we don't understand when and how our bodies make cholesterol and when and how they break it down. Every time we eat, we start a new timer and start making cholesterol again. If we ate once during the day, that would be way more beneficial to this cholesterol situation, let's say.

You can see, though, that if you're a breakfast, lunch, and dinner person, you will have high cholesterol. It's almost inevitable because you always make it and rarely break it down. Let's flip this again: look at intermittent fasting and go to the extreme. Let's say you cram all your 2,000 calories into one meal and do that in about four hours daily. That's awesome. That is optimal. That is what we want. Most people can't do that.

If you can go, let's say, open your window at noon and close your window by 8 pm, that's plenty good. You're also benefiting from what I'm going to tell you. But if you can just make it real simple, I just ate. I'm going to make cholesterol for five hours, then I'm going to stop, and I'm going to break it down. Then, that clears up any cholesterol problems. And there are certain weird random outliers statistically here, but for most of us, that would clear up all of our cholesterol problems.

Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol is what causes plaque.

Let's talk about something else associated with cholesterol and statins. This is a little more detailed and gets more into the heart stuff. But you don't want to mess with these processes. You don't want to mess with the cholesterol process. It's such a big process in our body. Now, a doctor will say, oh, Chip, you're so wrong. It's high LDL is what causes plaque. You need a statin because you need to cut down on that LDL so that you won't cause plaque and arteriosclerosis. Have any of you guys been told that you have plaque or a plaque former, that you have arteriosclerosis, or that you're building plaque in your veins? Well, this will be important for you.

It turns out that these LDL cells, the cells that transport cholesterol, are built from omega-three and omega-six fats. That's pretty interesting, right? And if you're eating equal parts of omega-three and omega-six fats. None of us are doing this, by the way. Then, your LDLs will have a nice even ratio of omega three and 6 in their cell surface and cell walls. If you're doing what most of us do right now, overconsuming omega six fats and under-consuming omega, that will be reflected in your LDL cell walls. Those cell walls will consist mostly of omega-six fats and hardly any omega-three fats. Why does this matter? Omega 6 fats are sticky. Omega 3 fats are slick.

If you're building your LDLs with a bunch of sticky fat, they will be sticky, they will stick together, and you will form plaque. How do you fix this? Eat more Omega 3. Please pay attention to your diet; you should be eating equal parts of omega three and omega six within, let's say, a 1 to 4 ratio. It is super important for our heart, health, and overall function. Everything is just omega three and omega six balance. But directly here, as to, as to. It goes to LDLs; your behavior and input of omega three omega 6s directly affect your plaque formation.

If you eat more omega 6s than omega 3s, you'll be more of a plaque former and more at risk of plaque formation. What busts up? Plaque. This is interesting. Allison. Allison from Garlic will bust up the plaque. If you like garlic, great. Have a good time; go bust up your plaque. No vampires will threaten you if you don't like garlic. Sorry, get it in a capsule or something. That's a little bit of stuff that you can do. Kind of, let's say, self-hacks that we can do to cut down on plaque. If you do have high cholesterol, the answer is not a statin. The answer is intermittent fasting and paying attention to your eating frequency. As always, there are exceptions to this. If you are on a statin drug, talk to your physician, run this data by your physician, and see what your physician says. I'm not a doctor, so I can't give you medical advice, is what I'm saying. If you take anything from this video that you might take as medical advice, please run it by your physician. And I in no way want to be giving medical advice. All right, we'll leave it there for today. We'll return with another exciting version of the Chip Talks podcast next week.