Worms lower cholesterol and prevent atherosclerosis

Zizzle · Post by **Zizzle** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 9:57 am

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 1913001537

Another reason to get parasitized by worms!! Where can I sign up?

chronic helminthic infections was found to be associated with lower serum total cholesterol levels and a significant attenuation of atherosclerosis.

Post by **tex** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:24 am

Well, since that study was done on cadavers, don't you feel that it might be a good idea to find out why those subjects died, before signing up for the treatment? For all we know, they might have perished due to complications related to helminth infections.

The medical community is totally out of step with the realities of the association of cholesterol levels with mortality risk. After all, low cholesterol levels combined with any type of trauma can be a deadly combination, since low cholesterol increases the risk of a fatal outcome significantly. The first link below references an older study, while the second is associated with a relatively recent research article.

Collectively,these data are suggestive of an inverse association, although not entirely consistent, between total cholesterol and incidence of infections either requiring hospitalization or acquired in the hospital.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 825784.pdf

The results indicate higher mortality among older people with lower levels of total cholesterol. Furthermore, they show no association between all-cause mortality and hypercholesterolemia, high LDL-c, low HDL-c, hypertriglyceridemia, and high non-HDL-c in this group of older adults.

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2012/930139/

In fact, at least for older individuals, higher cholesterol levels have been shown to be protective (IOW, higher cholesterol levels lead to higher survival rates). And this is a very recent article.

During follow-up of 3.47 ± 1.87 years, 248 patients died. These patients had significantly lower levels of baseline serum total cholesterol (183.3 ± 45.4 vs. 200.2 ± 37.9, p = 0.01) and albumin (3.6 ± 0.5 vs. 3.8 ± 0.3 g/l, p = 0.002) than the survivors. In the Cox regression analysis, serum total cholesterol emerged as a significant, independent predictor of mortality in this cohort. Specifically, each 1 mg/dl increase in serum total cholesterol reduced risk of death by 0.4%. This association persisted even after controlling for serum creatinine, age, body mass index, dementia and congestive heart failure. These factors were also significantly, independently associated with mortality.

The red emphasis is mine.

http://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com ... 0/fulltext

Tex

coryhub · Post by **coryhub** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 2:55 pm

Thanks Tex for the information about cholesterol you sited above. I have resisted every year letting my doctor putting me on Zocor or a similar statin. I was on Zocor the year before I was diagnosed with MC and I experienced restless, achy legs and it was hard to get to sleep at night. I stopped the Zocor and that went away. I read online that studies show statins can increase your life by two years. Not worth it for all the side effects and the risks to other organs.
Zizzle, the worm controversy is interesting to follow. It will be nice to see where it leads to over the next couple of years.

Zizzle · Post by **Zizzle** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 2:59 pm

Numerous studies show statins have absolutely no beneficial effect for WOMEN, as far as preventing heart attacks. Even in men, the only real benefit is for those with previous heart attacks. My FIL suffers constant muscle pain from Lipitor and I'm begging him to get off it. He goes on and off but is too afraid to go off doctors' orders completely. The muscle damage caused by statins can lead to Dermatomyositis, which I would not wish on anyone.

Post by **tex** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 9:03 pm

To add to the anti-statin argument, there is very good reason to believe that statins contribute to the development of Alzheimer's and other dementia-based issues. Statins starve the brain for fatty acids, and as a result, this can lead to drying out of the myelin sheaths that encase and protect nerve fibers in the brain.

As the myelin sheaths dry out, the nerves die, and and this leads to the death of the brain cells that were served by those nerves. An analysis of the spinal fluid from Alzheimer's/dementia patients shows a deficiency of fatty acids (IOW, a deficiency of cholesterol in the brain and spinal column).

That means that Alzheimer's disease may have an iatrogenic origin, for many patients (who take statins).

Tex

Lesley · Post by **Lesley** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 11:26 pm

I got test results today, and my cholesterol is up. I know my doctor is going to have another go at me to take a statin, but NO WAY!
Glad this came out right now, so I am supported in refusing.

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:35 pm

Coincidentally, I had some lab work done yesterday which included my cholesterol levels. I was glad to see the confirmation in my own body of all the studies coming out now that eating lots of red meat is not going to put you in the hospital with a heart attack. My total cholesterol fell to 152 from 217 a few years ago, HDL is up to 61 (with no exercise), and my estimated CHD risk fell from 4 times average to < .5 times average. Low-carb for the win!