Statin Use Linked to Heart Disease

Larry A. Law

In my book, There's An Elephant in the Room—Exposing Hidden Truths in the Science of Health, I dedicate chapter 27 to heart disease and the cholesterol lie. I document studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showing that "for each 1mg/dl drop of cholesterol, there was an 11% increase in coronary and total mortality." What this means is that lowering cholesterol correlates to increasing heart disease and death! Statin drugs aimed at lowering cholesterol are the wrong approach. I wrote about that in 2017. Now, two new studies shed even more light on how statin drugs raise the risk of heart disease.   

Coronary Calcification

Fifty percent of men who die of heart disease die suddenly without experiencing any previous symptoms. Cardiac arrest (death) is the first symptom for half of all men who died of heart disease. The statistics are worse for women: 64%! And 75% of people having a heart attack have medically acceptable levels (good) cholesterol. So if the cause isn't the cholesterol, what is it?

While you won't hear it on the television commercials or from your doctor, hardening of the arteries or coronary calcification is the number one indicator for heart disease. Calcification happens when calcium accumulates on the walls of coronary arteries which provide oxygen to the heart. This build-up of plaque begins to harden the artery and represents the first sign of early coronary artery disease (atherosclerosis). The heart has to work harder to pump blood through these vessels since they can no longer help constrict and push the blood along. 

Statins Promote Calcification 

A study published in 2021 and another in 2022 found a connection between statin use, coronary artery calcification (CAC), and vitamin K2 deficiency. It appears that statins inhibit vitamin K, encouraging calcification by heightening inflammation. Statins also damage protein carriers of the mineral selenium (selenoproteins) causing a shortage of selenium which further damages heart health. The study authors warned that "physicians in general are not aware that statins can cause heart failure and are clearly not recognizing it." Although doctors readily diagnose heart failure in statin users, they usually attibute it to factors related to age, high blood pressure, or arterial disease. They don't hold the statin drug accountable. Doctors prescribing cholesterol drugs "cannot ignore the moral responsibility of 'informed consent,'" the researchers wrote, noting that patients deserve full disclosure of side effects such as cardiovascular disease and heart failure. With more than 1 million annual heart failure hospitalizations in the US, the condition is often referred to as an epidemic—and, according to the study, it may be that "statin drug therapy is a major contributing factor."

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)

Multiple studies show that statins inhibit CoQ10 synthesis within the body, so that many patients taking statins also supplement with CoQ10—vital for nourishing the ATP molecules in the mitochondria that produce cellular energy. A review published in Clinical Pharmacology documented that statins act as "mitochondrial toxins" impairing muscle function in the heart and blood vessels by depleting CoQ10. Authors stated that this energy deficit "could be a major cause for heart muscle and coronary artery damage. We believe that many years of statin drug therapy result in the gradual accumulation of mitochondrial DNA damage." Another 2022 study published in Biophysical Journal linked reduced ATP to heart failure.

​Question: With all of this scientific data linking statins to heart disease, why don't our doctors get the message and remove this drug from the approved prescription list? Answer: statin drugs are the largest moneymaker for the pharmaceutical industry. For more information on how Big Pharma created the Cholesterol Lie and profits from it, see this excellent summary by Vance Voetberg.