Your doctor may have told you that you have high blood pressure and that your "bad" cholesterol is high. Every time you visit your doctor he "takes your blood pressure". You compare your lipid test results with your friends and family. I have this and you have that. You may have been placed on expensive statin family cholesterol lowering drugs - for the rest of your life. Ultimately your doctor is out to help you and not to harm you. But you should understand that the lowering of cholesterol in your blood to improve your heart and decrease your chances of heart disease and heart attack is nothing more than a crap shoot so to speak.

Heart disease and heart trouble in many cases all come from narrowing of the arteries. Imagine you are stepping on a garden hose that is running with water. It does not take much decrease in size of the diameter of the hose to slow the flow in that hose. So it is with the arteries in your body. All it takes to cause heart disease and a heart attack is a small reduction in the size of the lumen (opening) of your blood arteries.

What has been found in the blood arteries of many of the bodies of heart disease and heart attack victims post mortem is narrowed blood arteries with crystals of cholesterol in the walls of their arteries. It is these crystals of cholesterol that is bulging the walls of these arteries of the blood circulation system that is narrowing and occluding the arteries of these people who had heart disease. However does a high serum (blood) cholesterol necessary lead to cholesterol crystals in the arteries of blood vessels and then to heart disease? In the end no one knows. It will not be for several generations when results of follow up trials of long term treatment of people with high blood pressure and high serum cholesterols will tell our grandchildren and great grandchildren whether in their adult world it is a good idea to lower our serum cholesterol and be addicted to statin type cholesterol lowering drugs and medications that are not of no consequence and risk as sugar water would be.

It is not an unreasonable assumption to take - that it is a good idea to lower serum cholesterol in an attempt to reduce heart disease risk. It is just that you should know that in the end this is just a good guess and a crapshoot so to speak. A person who has other risk factors for heart disease - such as those with diabetes or previous heart attacks or disease is another ball of wax so to speak. These people are most likely to benefit from statin cholesterol lowering drugs as their risk of having a stroke or heart attacks are high.

However for the average person it is another story. The acceptable numbers for serum cholesterol have becoming lower and lower so that almost everyone is now a candidate for Statin serum lowering cholesterol drug therapy. What was ok 5 years ago is now considered a very high indeed deadly serum cholesterol measurement. It is a growth industry for the pharmaceutical industry so to speak. Once you are on these medicatiatons you are hooked for life. You cannot come off these drugs because you will have a much greater chance of heart disease. Furthermore these medications are not risk free. They are not free of side effects. It is not as if taking these pills is like taking sugar water. To begin with cholesterol is normally produced in your body. Cholesterol is natural not a poison. Cholesterol is used throughout your body in many important functions and normal body processes and controls.

The family of cholesterol lowering statin drugs has a number of side effects. Two of the most troubling of statin side effects include extreme muscle pain and muscle disease and serious liver problems. Anyone with liver disease (schmendricks who drink heavily) should be very careful about taking these statin cholesterol lowering drugs and medications. Lastly statin medications decrease your body's supply of Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) which is an essential nutrient for heart strength and function.

You may think that changing your diet and exercise will help your cholesterol levels. Ultimately diet and exercise seem to have limited effects on changing cholesterol levels. In France they eat all the worst foods - high in fat, lots of wine and alcohol and in the end they are fine, at least in terms of incidence of incidence of heart disease, strokes and heart attacks.

In the end remember that your doctor is trying to be of help to you. Always be considerate of that. Nothing is all good, nothing is all bad. As your grandmother may have told you - it all depends and that diseases seem to run in families. Genetics always play a major role. It you have heart disease already or heart disease - heart trouble, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes or diabetes run in your family be as cautious with your serum cholesterol as possible. If not consider the other side. It never hurts to be cautious and ask questions.

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