Statins are by far the most commonly prescribed drugs for high cholesterol. In fact, some scientists have even proposed that low quantities of statins be added to our drinking water because high cholesterol is so prevalent.
A new study published in the December 2016 edition of PLOS One shows just how crazy this will be.
In fact, eating statins can take away from you the best natural tool to fight high cholesterol, heart attack and stroke.
Scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wanted to find out whether statins affect our ability to exercise, as well as our stamina, muscle strength, muscle development. Finally, they also looked at the body’s ability to use energy.
At the beginning of the study on mice, scientists tested muscle strength by tugging on them while they were hanging off a vertical wall.
They also measured how quickly their leg muscles became tired and incapable of contraction, and extracted some tissue to examine the cellular health of their muscles.
Armed with this baseline information, they split the mice into two groups, one that received statins and another that received a placebo.
They reached some alarming conclusions about statins’ effect on mice:
1. They could run fewer miles than their peers not on statins, and their speed declined.
2. It was easier to tug the statin-taking mice than the non-statin takers off the wall, proving that their grip strength had declined.
3. Electrical stimulation showed that the statin takers’ leg muscles became tired and unable to contract a lot sooner than those of their peers.
4. Their muscle cells were much worse at processing energy than those of the other mice, which is the most widely accepted way to prove fitness at the cellular level.
5. Their muscles were much thinner than those of the other mice with fewer muscle fibers.
If this is true of humans too, statins will compromise your ability to exercise and, by so doing, they will deprive you of one of the best natural methods to rid yourself of cholesterol and lower your risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Consider also what the effect statins may have on heart muscle – alarming indeed. Even if you exercise, the damage to the muscle can be catastrophic, leading to heart attack and stroke.