Statins Increase Your Risk Of Parkinson’s Disease By Up To 50%

Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are probably two of the most feared diseases, especially as we grow older. Both have devastating effects on the brain and nervous system and even though both diseases have “early onset” versions, generally they affect the elderly.

Now, a new study has found that you can cut your risk of Parkinson’s disease by 50 per cent if you avoid taking statin drugs… or viewed from a different angle: Statin drugs increase your risk of Parkinson’s disease by a whopping 50 per cent.

US researchers looked at blood cholesterol levels, medications and Parkinson’s disease status in nearly 16,000 men and women who participated in the ongoing, long-term Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study. During the study, the researchers took cholesterol readings at three-year intervals over the course of a decade from 1987 to 1998, before widespread statin use began. Then, from 1998 to 2008, they tracked how many men and women had started statin therapy, and how many of them developed Parkinson’s disease.

The results showed that men and women who took statin drugs were twice as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. But here’s the interesting part: The researchers linked higher total cholesterol with lower Parkinson’s disease risk.

Commenting on the study results, lead researcher Dr. Xuemei Huang, said, “If we blanket prescribe statins to people we could be creating a huge population of people with neurological problems.”

In fact, the study results even made waves in the UK. Dr. Kailash Chand, Deputy Director of the British Medical Association, said in an interview: “The risks of side-effects of these drugs are far greater than any potential benefits and it is high time these drugs were restricted…”

And he is right. Statin drugs have been linked to cataracts, type 2 diabetes, muscle damage, kidney and liver disorders, Alzheimer’s disease and memory loss, and even heart disease itself. And now we can add Parkinson’s disease.

For more than a decade we’ve been warning our readers against the cholesterol con. And now, finally, it seems like some mainstream doctors are beginning to cotton onto the truth: Our bodies produce cholesterol for a reason. It has an essential biological function and interfering with this natural biology has detrimental effects on our health.

A friend of mine recently used the following metaphor to describe the mainstream’s backward thinking when it comes to cholesterol: All cars have wheels. They need wheels in order to take us from point A to point B. However, cars are sometimes in accidents, which sometimes kill people. So what’s the solution? Take away their wheels, because without wheels they can’t make accidents, right?

Humans need cholesterol in the same way cars need wheels. It’s just how it works.

http://www.thecholesteroltruth.com/

Graham