Statin Drugs Open Us Up to Foodborne Illnesses

Statin-Drugs-1Did you know that cholesterol drugs make us more vulnerable to bacterial infections, including e. coli and salmonella? We have some other surprising news about cholesterol—and natural ways to battle those bugs.

At the same time the government says it is trying to address the problem of foodborne illnesses, it recommends drugs which may actually put its citizens at greater risk from food poisoning.
A recent study shows that the statin drug simvastatin, which the government is advocating we take to lower cholesterol levels, actually weakens our immune system and makes it difficult to fight off bacterial infections. Italian scientists found that the drug, sold under the names Zocor and Simvacor, hinders the ability of the body’s immune cells to kill pathogens, and increases the production of cytokines, which trigger and sustain inflammation. This is a preliminary finding in that it is based on lab work with human cells and also mice studies. But it is not at all surprising. In fact, it is completely in agreement with earlier research.
Surprise! High Cholesterol Protects Against Infection!
Cholesterol isn’t the ticking time bomb most people have been led to think. Believe it or not, people with high cholesterol live the longest. Dr. Harlan Krumholz of Yale’s Department of Cardiovascular Medicine found that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol. Many studies have found that low cholesterol is in one respect or another worse than high cholesterol. A review of nineteen large studies of more than 68,000 deaths by the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota found that low cholesterol predicted an increased risk of dying from gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases.
Since food-related illnesses have an infectious origin, as do most other gastrointestinal illnesses, understanding the relationship between cholesterol and infection is vital. The University of Minnesota team followed more than 100,000 healthy individuals in the San Francisco area for fifteen years. At the end of the study those who had low cholesterol at the start of the study had been admitted to the hospital more often because of an infectious disease. In other words, either low cholesterol made them more vulnerable to infection, or high cholesterol protected those who did not become infected.
Even so-called “bad” cholesterol is needed by the body. It is oxidized “bad” cholesterol we have to worry about, and statins do not address that issue at all.
Natural Cures
If you do contract a foodborne illness, what does natural health research suggest? Remedies worth researching include red wine (potentially very effective), resveratrol, honey (especially medicinal Manuka honey), and the old antibacterial stand-by, raw garlic. Some experts advocate drinking lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to help kill the bacteria, taking activated charcoal, or eating carrots because beta carotene bolsters the immune system. And a Japanese study showed that wasabi eliminates e. coli and other food poisoning bacteria entirely. These are just a few ideas, but they’ll get you started on your own research.

16 comments

  1. I have been told my cholesterol is “too high,” but I’m not especially worried. The facts quoted above are very reassuring; I intend to live a long time.
    Besides, I take a supplement that has not been widely publicized: XPC, an animal feed product made by Diamond V. The refined, supposedly “food-safe” version is EpiCor, which costs nearly 50 times as much! I have been taking XPC for three years, and I have not had a sick day in all that time. I highly recommend it.
    You can find XPC at most animal feed stores, but you have to buy a 50-pound bag. (I have a friend who does that for me.) A pound of it will last you a year, and the product keeps almost indefinitely. I swear by it!

    1. So what exactly is XPC? Some online research shows it is a yeast. However, if you will read about food additives, most forms of food yeasts are actually damaging to the body. Please read more about it and other MSG/excitotoxins hidden in our foods. Why is it available only for animals? I just don’t get it. Thanks.

    2. Which brand of Red Yeast Rice has the hgsehit monacolin and monacolin K content and the lowest citrinin content? To be effective they should have the hgsehit amounts (11.15) and the least of citrinin (nephjrotoxic mycotoxin) Anyone out there know the answers? Since supplements are not FDA approved, unless the ingredients are posted you have no idea what you are taking.

      1. Although supplements do not require pre-market approval by the FDA, this does not mean there is no oversight or regulation. All supplements are required to carry a Supplement Facts label, similar to the Nutrition Facts labels on food, which lists the ingredients, their amounts, and their nutritional value.

  2. As a board certified health coach, I am very happy to see that more and more individuals and organizations are reporting the truth about cholesterol. It’s important to note (though somewhat obvious at this point, perhaps) that saturated fats do not increase either cholesterol levels or the risk of heart disease. Really, a diet with moderate to high fat intake will only make an individual healthier since it will help the body with the assimilation of fat soluable vitamins. For more information about cholesterol, I’d suggest reading Cholesterol and Fat and Good for You, by Dr. Uffe Ravnskov.

  3. “High cholesterol protected those who did not become infected.”
    Cholesterol is one of your bodies general purpose healing agents. Your body literally has HUNDREDS of uses for cholesterol. For a populace to take toxic drugs for “high cholesterol” is the height of misinformed medical insanity. How can a nation which spends trillions of dollars on “medical research” espouse such pathetic ignorance of a basic human physiological substance? Folks the whole cholesterol myth whereby tens of millions of poor souls have been sacrificed on the altar of Rockefeller Eugenic Dogma should wave a red flag for ALL of us to see.
    In the case of bacteria your body will flood an infected area with cholesterol to sop up much of the bacteria, including some of the most toxic bacteria of all. The cholesterol binds the bacteria and provided you have a little fiber in your stool both the cholesterol and bacteria will be defecated.
    http://healthyprotocols.com/2_cholesterol.htm

  4. As time goes by and TPTW finally fade into history, I believe it will become blatantly obvious that many so – called ‘facts’, concepts we are being taught to believe by their repeated reiteration by the media, are actually disinformation designed to lead us away from good health by those who want to ‘control the population’. Many of Big Pharma’s drugs are already being exposed for the dangerous sham they are; the longer I practice medicine the more of them I see as being designed to sicken instead of heal. The rescue inhalers designed for asthmatics contain a propellant that includes fluoride as part of its makeup; fluoride aggressively aggravates asthma symptoms in a fashion that is very difficult to overcome. My son had his asthma increase thirty – fold from one dental fluoride treatment, a treatment he received after I had specifically requested he not be given one. Eight years later he is only beginning to improve his frequency of nebulizer treatments.
    I think we will see more of this kind of information in the future.

      1. There is a way to remove fluoride from your sons body.
        Iodine is a special Chelator
        “Iodine intake immediately increases the excretion of bromide, fluoride, and some heavy metals including mercury and lead. Bromide and fluoride are not removed by any other chelator or detoxifying technique.” Iodine and Chelation , Note iodine should also chelate chlorine
        We have a large problem with the halogens in the US. It is no accident. You MUST take a little time to understand the problem. Read the Iodine and Chelation article a few times. Iodine is the answer. Make sure you are getting MANY times the silly RDA of iodine. About 14 mg/day IMO.
        http://healthyprotocols.com/2_chelation.htm

  5. When you get millions of people taking an expensive drug daily, it lines the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies. This is done with statins and drugs for osteoporosis. The
    osteoporosis drugs only preserve the outer layer of brittle bone and do not stimulate bone production. They have lots of side effects and one of them that is injectable daily is know to cause cancer and can only be given for 2 years. Big Pharma is experimenting on us and lining their pockets.
    Both statins and the osteo drugs are a scam on the American public by Big Pharma.
    (Retired from the medical community)

    1. Yes and there are MANY other medical scams. A brief totally incomplete list would include
      o Allopathic Drug Treatment for Chronic Disease, almost ALWAYS counter productive, life shortening
      o Vaccination, the crime of the ages on our children and ourselves
      o Cholesterol, totally innocent of CVD
      o CVD, ascorbate is much of the obviation
      o Chemo Cancer treatment, how can anything 97.9% unsuccessful be continued?
      o Breast Cancer Treatment, a total scam in many cases
      o Mammograms, deadly, false positive generating, breast cancer causing, metastagenic
      o Most high energy diagnostic tools, cancer causing electro disturbing and needless
      o Most “health screenings”, the bait into a deadly system
      o Prostate treatments, much better done with nutrition in most cases
      Please don’t misunderstand MOST physicians are honest caring people. BUT they lose their licenses when they deviate from the eugenic Rockefeller clan defined Standard of Care.

  6. Hi Brenda Ray and Susan:
    Diamond V XPC is a natural livestock feed additive formulated to help production animals maintain better immune health and better absorb nutrients. Some people have been promoting human consumption of XPC for health benefits, however you should not do that. XPC is formulated for animals’ digestive systems, not humans.
    EpiCor is a human nutritional immune support product made by Embria Health, a company affiliated with Diamond V. EpiCor is formulated for humans and has a number of human trials the demonstrate its effectiveness and safety. Get more info at http://www.epicorimmune.com.

  7. I read or heard somewhere that when statin drugs first came out they were formulated with CoQ10 because they interfered with the bodies ability to produce this enzyme and that this enzyme was necessary fir a healthy immune system.
    Any comment?

    1. I’m not sure if the statins were formulated with CoQ10 or not, but it is a fact that if you take a statin drug you should be sure to supplement with a generous amount of CoQ10, and if it is the Ubiquinol, instead of the Ubiquinone type, all the better. The Ubiquinol absorbs at a much better rate, and stays in your system far longer. Doctors are unaware in most cases of how important this is. It keeps their patients from suffering a nasty heart attack from a CoQ10 depleted by statins body. Learn about CoQ10, it will help you toward a longer, healthy life.

  8. I also take about a teaspoon of XPC daily and it works for me. It is an exceptionally good immune booster. I have not had a chest cold since I started taking this product. Prior to taking XPC I would have 2 major colds each year – one in the fall/winter and one in the spring. It would take weeks to get over each of these bad colds. Since a 50 lb bag provides an excess, I give XPC to all my family and friends and still have left-overs. They have equally good results. This is amazing stuff. When the feed plant workers where XPC is bagged experienced such few sick days compared to the company’s office workers, the company knew they were on to something and developed a separate product called EpiCor. The XPC dust in the feed plant does not harm the workers and in fact some reported an improvement in prior conditions. So if it does not harm the feed plant workers, I have no qualms about taking it. If you want to pay dollars to pennies, then consider EpiCor. I wonder if this stuff would prevent most hospital pneumonia’s?

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