1052. Statins: Worse News Ahead

THE DOCTOR IS IN Podcast


If you remember what statin drugs do, they lower cholesterol, and specifically LDL cholesterol. Dr. Martin has never understood why you’d want to have low cholesterol when your body actually needs it.

Dr. Martin looks at 3 studies on statin drugs published in the last week, and it’s not good news. From depleting your immune system, to increasing your risk of breast cancer, to being more susceptible to autoimmune diseases like lupus, this is all possible when you lower your LDL cholesterol.

TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE

Announcer:  You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.

Dr. Martin:  Well, good morning everyone, and once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great day. Hope you're having your coffee and enjoying that. Of course, how good it is for you. Okay, 1, 2, 3 studies. All three published in the last week. Not good news on statin drugs. Okay, what are statin drugs? Well, you guys know it, but let's go over it again. Statin drugs lower cholesterol, but they're very specific though. What they really do is lower L D L cholesterol, okay? And guys, if you take statin drugs, I'm not telling you to come off of them. I don't do that. I'm not your physician. All I'm telling you is the research is not good. Three new studies on statin drugs and let's go over them. Like I said, not good. Okay?

And just as a reminder, statin drugs lower LDL cholesterol, okay? And I got to tell you, honestly, you go look in any medical textbook that was written in the fifties, the sixties, the seventies even. You didn't even talk about LDL cholesterol. You talked about cholesterol, but you never talked about LDL cholesterol. And the training back then was to look at triglycerides, and then mid seventies or so, they got away from it. There was a huge paradigm shift in medicine. Now, even before that in nutrition, and I've talked to you many, many times about what I call the number one serial killer of all time, a fellow by the name of Ancel Keys, who was a pathologist out of the University of Minnesota. And after President Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1955, he started to be famous. It would almost be like, what doctor do you know? You'd think Dr. Oz, right? Everybody knows Dr. Oz. But since the pandemic, what name do you know? Dr. Fauci, right? Everybody knows Dr. Fauci unless you don't watch the news at all. At all, at all, right?

But back in the 1950s, he was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1965. Dr. Ancel Keys wasn't a dummy, but he had a hypothesis. He had a thinking, and it became mainstream, especially in food. It started with food before medication. And that was cholesterol is the bad guy. And if you say something long enough, people believe it. So what happened is that there was a whole shift away from the farmer's breakfast, okay? Eggs, bacon, sausages. There was a whole emphasis that that was dangerous now. Don't do that. And the cereal companies, they loved it because they sponsored all sorts of research to vilify eggs and to vilify meat and to vilify butter. And the food industry took charge of that. And listen, they're very powerful and they influenced people. And believe you me, it happened in less than a generation. I've watched it happen.

I've watched my parents' generation, which was of course still alive in the seventies, and my generation get away from eating butter, eating a lot less eggs, a lot less meat. Why? Cholesterol? Cholesterol was the bad guy. Cholesterol gave you a heart attack. That's what happened to the president of the United States in 1955. And Dr. Ansel Keys became the face, became the guru that the media went to. And he said, well, it's cholesterol and I'm a pathologist. And he said, open up blood vessels, open them up. And when they get clogged, what do you find there? Cholesterol. Cholesterol's in the blood vessels. They're forming plaque. And he says, that's what the problem is. Okay, got it? And then a whole paradigm shift. And a lot of you will remember that. Now, what happened, secondly is the pharmaceutical industry got involved. What did they do? Well, they said, if cholesterol is the bad guy, we'd better cholesterol. So they develop what they call statin drugs, Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor, and any other OR that you can think of at the end. And they said, well, we can prove that we can lower your cholesterol. And they had to find a part of cholesterol to lower. So what did they find? They found LDL cholesterol.

Now guys, you might not agree with me, but you must admit, as long as you've been listening to me, some people 20 years when I was on the radio, now doing podcasts, you must admit I have been 100% consistent. Haven't I have, because what I've said, trying to lower cholesterol is trying to find love in all the wrong places. First of all, guys, your body needs cholesterol. And by the way, animal products are the only way to eat cholesterol. Cholesterol is not found in the plant kingdom. And for vegetarians, vegans, doctors, most of them, when they don't understand nutrition, they'll say, well, yeah, you better limit the animal kingdom. Plants are free because you get no cholesterol in that. But okay, let's say you became, I don't recommend it, but if you did, you're a vegetarian or you're a vegan, no cholesterol, you don't need it. Your body still makes it. Your body still makes cholesterol. You can't stop that. You can't. Not with food. Why? Because your body makes 85% of all your cholesterol needs. You know my expression? God does not trust you. He provides 85%. You provide 15%, you better eat it. Okay?

So, back to some history. The pharmaceutical industry jumped into the craze and said, let's lower cholesterol because it's going to save us from heart disease. Okay? Save us from heart disease. And so they developed the most successful drug of all time when it comes to money. The number one revenue producing medication of all time is what? Lipitor. Lipitor. Billions and billions and billions of dollars of revenue. And then they're smarter because the pharmaceutical industry, they influence medical schools. So what cholesterol is now, the boogeyman especially, they said very specific, especially L D L cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, okay?

Statin drugs have been around for quite a while. We're into 40 years and what's happened? Let's just look at the overarching, what's happened. Well, no dent, not even a little dent. Not even a pebble dent in heart disease. Heart disease today is still the number one killer. It's still the leading cause of death as far as chronic disease is concerned. Heart disease hasn't even made a dent, hasn't made a dent, and I know I shock you guys when I tell you this, but this is a true story. Statins became cholesterol lowering medication became so popular that about, I'm going to say 10 years ago. Now, time flies when I say it because in my head, I was thinking five years ago, but it was longer than that in the British parliament, they were actually considering putting statin medication in the drinking water. They were so cholesterol crazy. Cholesterol fanatics that cholesterol is the bad guy. They were actually thinking of putting it in the drinking water. Now it never passed. Hallelujah. But guys, think about that. And it's made no dent in heart disease. Looking for love in all the wrong places. It's not true.

You can lower your cholesterol. "Doc, I want to lower my cholesterol." Why? Why? Cholesterol's not the cause of your heart disease. Two expressions. Are police, the bad guys if they're at the crime scene, are firemen the bad guys because they're at the fire? No. Of course, cholesterol is found in blood vessels. Of course it is. Cholesterol, your body makes it. One of its biggest functions. It's not only to fill up all your cells of your body. They're transporters. They transport your hormones. Now, let me bring you a study. There's three of them, but let me bring you a study. Here's the study. When you lower LDL. Very specific, because that's what statin drugs do. Statin drugs don't lower your HDL, okay? They lower LDL. You don't want that, in my opinion, okay? You don't want to lower your L D L. Here's why. Here's what the study said. When you lower L D L, you deplete your immune system. You're much more susceptible to infection. Hey guys, don't shoot the messenger. I'm just telling you what the study said. Cholesterol is involved in your immune system.

I know, I know you guys know this, but hey, here we have a class of medication that's really been an abysmal failure, abysmal. It hasn't put a dent in heart disease history. What has made a dent in heart disease? What Ancel Keys said in the fifties when he started his rampage against cholesterol, what was President Eisenhower doing that made him so susceptible to heart disease? You got it. Smoking. He was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day, and what they didn't know then, what we know today, smoking damages blood vessels. Smoking through a process of free radical damage, oxidate damage, damages, blood vessels, nevermind, just cancer. Everybody knew. My dad used to smoke four packs of cigarettes a day like President Eisenhower. I think it was 1962. It might have been 1963. I was a young lad. My dad came home from the office and he said, I'm not smoking anymore. What? I didn't understand it. My dad always smoked. My mother smoked.

My dad smoked four packs of Buckinghams cigarettes a day. I'll never forget it, like my dad just always had a cigarette in his mouth. I wondered how he saw patients. I remember going up to my dad's office and he had all these big ashtrays. Everybody smoked. And so when my brothers who were older than me, my three older brothers, guess what they did? They smoked. My dad comes home in 1963 and he throws his Buckinghams. He had about 10 cigarettes. I think my older brothers were trying to get into the garbage to retrieve them. He said, I'm not smoking anymore. It causes cancer. Everybody looked at my dad like, what do you mean smoking causes cancer? Now guys, that's well established, but smoking causes heart disease too. Okay, so we got the memo. Okay, we got the memo. Has heart disease gone down? Nope. Cause there's new smoking. What's the new smoking? What damages your blood vessels today? What's the new smoking? Sugar. It's not cholesterol, it's sugar. It's insulin. It's insulin resistance. That's the new smoking.

It's the fact that we become carboholics that we got away from eating cholesterol. We're not eating enough cholesterol, and the only way to get cholesterol is when you eat from the animal kingdom. You want low cholesterol? Okay, well, you're going to have a bad immune system. That's what the research is showing. And here's another one, okay? In the publication of Current Oncology, here's what it says. Statin drugs increase your risk of cancer. Specifically ladies, breast cancer. In the issue of Current Oncology, statin drugs have a relationship they're saying to increase breast cancer. Why? You're hurting your immune system. It's linked with the other study that says, if you insist on lowering your L D L, you know what's going to happen? Your immune system, you know, because people think of immune system, they think of bacteria and viruses. Yeah, that's true, but they don't think of immune system in cancer, and they should. It decreases your immune system. Second study. Third study. Statin drugs increase your risk of autoimmune. Well, holy moly, it increases your risk specifically of lupus. Autoimmune.

Now, how does that occur? Well, statin drugs affect your microbiome. Almost any medication really destroys the microbiome, but statin drugs, they're showing now, much like antibiotic affects your microbiome, and this is well established. I'm not even going to show you this study this morning, but this is well established that when you're on statin drugs, you're lowering your cholesterol. Why do you want to do that? Your brain's made up of cholesterol and the direct link, if it damages your gut, can affect your brain. Leaky gut, leaky brain. Significant guys, and I can't tell you not to take it. I'm just going to tell you what to do. Here's what you should do for heart disease. Lower your carbohydrate intake, increase your cholesterol, increase it. Do your parts, make sure you're providing your 15%. Do your part. How do you get cholesterol? Eggs, meat and cheese. That's where cholesterol is found, guys. It's found in the animal kingdom. It's found in dairy. Don't drink milk unless you have a cow in the backyard, but you can eat cheese. Okay? I love dairy. Don't ditch dairy. Switch dairy, okay? I love dairy because he gives you cholesterol and eat your bacon and eggs in the morning because he gives you a cholesterol.

And I see a lot of you eating steak and eggs. Beautiful. If I could only give you a high fire, if I was in your kitchen, I'd be giving you high fives. You're eating the right thing. Elevate cholesterol, elevate it. Yep, elevate it. If you have higher LDL, you're going to live longer, as simple as that. I know. "Dr. Martin, that's going against mainstream medicine." I know, I know. "My cardiologist." I know it's going to be tough, but if you look at blood work properly, okay? The key key to insulin, the key to your blood work is this. It's really important, guys. Okay? I'm doubling down. I'm tripling down. I'm quadrupling down. I'm just really, really putting emphasis on this. Here's what you look for. A1C. Why do I like A1C? Because I can tell if you have insulin resistance, you want it to be under 5.4, and if you can shoot for under five, holy smokes, is that ever good for you? All the new research on A1C, okay, is unreal, unreal. Lower your A1C. "How do I lower my A1C doc?" I eat from the animal kingdom and I lay off the bread, the pasta, the rice, the cereals, the sugar, the sweets, the pastries, the bagels, the muffins, the la, la, la, la, la and grocery store milk. Lay off it. What happens? Your A1C goes down.

Attached to that is your triglycerides. Three tri glycerides fat balls. Three fat balls. Now, your body produces triglycerides. They're not bad guys. And especially, you have to link your triglycerides. Understand this. You have to link your triglycerides with your cholesterol HDL specifically, because H D L, you want it to be high. You want high cholesterol, not low, high, because HDL are trucks with a wagon in the back and they go through your blood vessels and they're looking for triglycerides. If you have high triglycerides, you're a carboholic. Got it? You're eating too many carbs. I've had people come to me, doc, how come my triglycerides haven't come down enough? I said, you and carbs don't get along. You got a bad relationship with carbs? Oh, I like carbs. I know, but they don't like you got a bad relationship. You're in the Stockholm Syndrome. You know what that is, right? You have a relationship with carbs and they're hijacking you. They're elevating your triglycerides, and that ain't good. Triglycerides, all right? They're normal until they're not. If they get high and you don't have enough cholesterol to sweep them out of your bloodstream and to pick them up, you see, they hitch their wagon. H D L hitches its wagon to triglycerides, and what do they do? They bring them back to the liver for processing. That's how your body works. Why would you want to have low cholesterol? Why?

I always get the biggest kick. In America, we don't get so much commercials in Canada unless we're watching American shows where they show you, especially news at night, okay or whatever. They show you all these drug advertisements, okay? In the States, they're very big. But one of the funniest ones, I thought it was funny, and you got to know my sense of humor was the fireman coming down. You know, the fire pole in the fire station. He slides down the fire pole screaming, "I got my cholesterol down," and he's going around the fire station giving everybody high fives. I found it comical. They don't know what they're talking about. Why do you want to have low cholesterol? I felt like saying, fireman, go back up the pole and start eating more bacon and eggs. Oh, guys, you have to undo a lot of stuff you hear. You have to undo it. It's not easy because it's going to be drummed into you. And especially fear. Fear is a powerful motivation. You know, because I had a former patient tell me, not long ago, I think it was a week or so ago, tell me that their doctor said, "okay, you want to have a heart attack?" And that scares them. They're not doctors. It scares them. "You want to have a heart attack?"

You don't want low cholesterol. Your brain, your cells, your eyeballs, everything needs cholesterol to function. You don't want it low. You don't want it low. And if you don't even eat any cholesterol, a lot of people don't eat any eggs, meat and cheese. A lot of people are like that. And of course, today it's getting worse and worse and worse because they're blaming the climate right on cows. And you know what? I look at that stuff and I go like, are you kidding me? Forget the climate. Okay? Let's not talk about it. But for heaven's sakes, it's part and parcel of getting people away from eating animal products. That's bad, bad for you. Eat our crickets. Ooh, eat our meatless meat. Ooh, eat our margarine. Ooh, that gives me a splitting headache. It looks like butter. Your your body don't know what that is. You eat margarine. Your body goes, okay, what is it? What is it? Doesn't know what it is. It's plastic. Ooh.

Okay, guys. I know I get excited. I do. I admit it. Okay. Now, have I told you lately that I love you? I haven't. Guys, I love my audience. You guys are unreal. Now listen, a lot of people are going to ask questions. Share this information, share it. You can share it, okay? Get people to download. The Doctor Is In podcast. Okay? We appreciate that. Thank you for being so loyal. We appreciate that. You have no idea how much we do. Okay? Talk to you soon.

Announcer:  You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!

Back to blog