Could the widespread use of statin drugs have set the stage for vulnerability to COVID-19?
My hypothesis suggests that the massive, population-wide lowering of cholesterol among Americans leading up to 2019 weakened our defenses against this novel pathogen.
Unintended Consequences of Cholesterol Reduction
Statin drugs are designed to lower cholesterol levels, particularly "bad" low-density lipoproteins (LDL) that carry cholesterol to our cells. These medications have been widely prescribed in the U.S. for decades. By 2013, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association recommended statins for nearly everyone between ages 65 and 75 at elevated risk of cardiovascular disease. Fast forward to 2019, and the statin market had soared to $10 billion, with over 92 million Americans—mainly older adults—on these drugs, marking a threefold increase from the previous decade.
A Saturated Market
By 2019, the American public was more saturated with statins than ever before, ranking sixth in the world for per capita statin use. This broad reduction in cholesterol might have inadvertently increased vulnerability to the virus that leads to COVID-19, turning what could have been a mild illness into a severe threat, especially for older adults, individuals with obesity, and those suffering from multiple chronic conditions.
What Does This Mean for You?
Understanding the broader implications of widespread statin use is crucial. It's important to stay informed about how medications can impact your health, especially in the context of emerging threats like SARS-CoV-2.
The unintended consequence of widespread statin use was an increased vulnerability among seniors to more severe outcomes from other illnesses, like SARS-CoV-2. By 2019, this cumulative susceptibility likely marked the lowest point in collective immune strength, just before the pandemic struck, as I will explain in this article.
Statin drugs lower cholesterol, which is essential for forming Vitamin-D—the conductor of the human immune system. Three organs play a role in Vitamin-D production: the skin, liver, and kidneys. This process ensures that Vitamin-D reaches its fully activated form, acting as the executive director of all immune functions, as illustrated in the diagram below.
Vitamin-D plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of the immune system and was particularly important in combating COVID-19. In the 2021 book, “The Defeat of COVID,” it referenced over 130 studies demonstrating Vitamin-D's significant impact on both preventing and treating COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.
Individuals with higher levels of Vitamin-D in their blood or those who took supplements had significantly lower hospitalization rates and mortality compared to those who were deficient or did not supplement. Numerous studies and meta-analyses confirm that regular intake or sunlight exposure to Vitamin-D can preemptively protect against COVID-19 and other respiratory and viral illnesses.
Understanding COVID Vulnerability
COVID-19 disproportionately impacted the elderly, with the average age of death being 81—two to three years beyond the U.S. life expectancy at that time. Seniors, especially those with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, smoking habits, and multiple comorbidity, were particularly vulnerable. The morbidity and mortality rates in the United States were alarmingly high compared to global figures. Despite having only 4% of the world's population, the U.S. accounted for 33% of global COVID-19 deaths. The country also reported the highest number of diagnosed cases, over 103 million, followed by India with 44 million. COVID-19 claimed 1.1 million lives in the United States.
Our World In Data shows the United States with more COVID deaths per capita than any country, nearly tied with the UK and Italy, as of March 2024.
COVID-19 deaths and morbidity were exacerbated by the medical system's lack of understanding and mishandling of cholesterol, which resulted in a surge of statin drug prescriptions over recent decades. This trend may be partly due to a reluctance among prescribers to explore less profitable questions like, "How can cholesterol be harmful when it serves so many vital functions in the body?" As Upton Sinclair famously noted, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it."
The lucrative nature of the statin market made it easier for the industry to maintain the narrative that cholesterol is bad and statins are good, rather than questioning whether cholesterol is actually a threat to health. Consequently, it became more convenient to demonize a natural molecule in the body and promote drugs to eliminate it, instead of investigating its true impact on health.
So then we need to ask: “What does cholesterol do, and how does it work?”
What Does Cholesterol Do?
Cholesterol is vital for every cell in the body. The liver produces about 75% to 80% of our cholesterol, with the remaining 20% coming from food, highlighting its necessity. LDL cholesterol, often labeled "bad cholesterol," is crucial because it transports cholesterol to cells, where it becomes a key component of cell membranes. Cholesterol makes up approximately 30% of the lipid bilayer in mammalian cell membranes, underscoring its importance for both wild and domesticated mammals.
Cholesterol ensures our cell membranes are flexible and robust, enabling essential signaling processes vital for life. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging has demonstrated that cholesterol is necessary for the proper flow of signaling proteins. Without such cellular communication, the body cannot sustain life; the cessation of this signaling could be considered a definition of death.
Neurons, in particular, rely heavily on cholesterol, which is abundant in the central nervous system. Lowering cholesterol levels has been linked to cognitive and memory impairments in both mice and humans. Data from the Framingham Heart Study, indicated a significant positive association between total cholesterol and various cognitive functions, including verbal fluency, attention, concentration, and abstract reasoning.
One might wonder if older adults would have reconsidered taking statin drugs had they known these findings. Additionally, higher cholesterol levels have been associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson's Disease, indicating that cholesterol deficiency may play a role in its development.
Cholesterol is essential for digesting food because it is the primary material for producing bile acids. Bile acids help absorb nutrients and act as detergents to break down fats, enabling the liver to process dietary fats and cholesterol.
Cholesterol is also crucial for synthesizing reproductive hormones such as Testosterone, Progesterone, and Estrogen, as well as Glucocorticoids and Mineralocorticoids. These hormones are produced in the gonads during youth and in the adrenal glands throughout life, ensuring proper adrenal function.
Importantly, cholesterol is necessary for synthesizing Vitamin-D, which is vital for combating COVID-19 and other pathogenic microbes. This figure illustrates all the major functions of cholesterol.
How Statin Drugs Work
Statin drugs inhibit the enzyme HMG CoA reductase (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase) in the blood and liver, which is essential for cholesterol production. By targeting this enzyme, statins significantly reduce LDL cholesterol, often labeled "bad cholesterol," a notion that has been widely accepted by both doctors and patients—even though it's misleading.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a prominent UK cardiologist, asserts that LDL cholesterol is a poor predictor of heart disease risk and advises against fixating on lowering it. In his book “A Statin-Free Life,” he argues that statins are ineffective in preventing heart disease.
While "poisoning" might seem like a harsh term, it accurately describes the impact of statins on the enzyme HMG CoA reductase. This inhibition not only reduces cholesterol production, particularly LDL cholesterol, but also Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which is crucial for mitochondrial function as part of the electron transport chain necessary for ATP production. The deficiency of CoQ10 impairs mitochondrial function, leading to muscle pain and fatigue, as mitochondria fail to meet the muscles' needs—including the heart, which is predominantly muscle.
The Cochrane Heart Group notes that the severity of heart failure correlates with the level of CoQ10 deficiency. Attempting to disrupt a single biochemical pathway, such as cholesterol synthesis, often leads to unintended negative consequences affecting related pathways.
Many people taking statin drugs experience side effects, resulting in low adherence to prescriptions. Statins are so difficult to tolerate that 75% of individuals prescribed these drugs discontinued use within a year.
Everything You Were Told About Statins and Cholesterol Was Wrong
"As someone familiar with my work would know, calling me a medical contrarian is an understatement. For instance, my total cholesterol was 289 at the last measurement, and I prefer it that way, particularly in my senior years, due to my extensive research on cholesterol's critical functions in the body. The global effort over the past four decades to reduce heart disease by lowering cholesterol through diet and medications has failed." — Dr. Aseem Malhotra, Cardiologist.
Despite this, many conventional medical providers remain convinced that cholesterol, especially LDL and very-LDL, are primary culprits in heart disease. Even though only one in eight randomized trials showed statins reducing all-cause mortality, mainstream medical organizations like the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association continue to perpetuate the belief that cholesterol must be reduced.
A systematic review and meta-analysis by researchers Paula Byrne, Maryanne Demasi, Mark Jones, and others examined 21 statin trials involving over 140,000 subjects. They found no consistent relationship between lowering LDL-C and reducing death, heart attack, or stroke from statin therapy.
Before the COVID-19 vaccines and their questionable efficacy and safety, statins had the worst benefit-to-risk ratio of any drug class. Even in the most favorable studies, which were biased towards statins, it was found that over five years, statins could extend life by only three to four days at best!
Statin manufacturers have never made their data publicly available, with regulators assisting in keeping it hidden.
Clinicians have reported numerous adverse reactions from their patients on statins. One clinician noted: "Ever since statins hit the market, colleagues and I have observed case after case where patients experienced loss of sensation, muscle pains, or cognitive decline upon starting statins, which resolved once they stopped taking them."
In 2015, Dr. David Brownstein wrote on his blog: "Statins are the biggest fraud in modern medicine."
The Statin Craze
The statin craze of our era has led to reduced cholesterol levels, which subsequently impaired people's ability to produce Vitamin-D in their skin upon sun exposure. This issue is compounded by decades of propaganda against sunlight, possibly driven by the profit motive behind sunscreen sales. As a result, we now have a population that has diminished its cholesterol levels, affecting Vitamin-D synthesis, and that fears sun exposure.
Somehow, the general public has been convinced that the human immune system's strength comes from multiple childhood vaccinations and that cholesterol is a dangerous substance. Our culture is heavily reliant on pharmaceuticals: 66% of U.S. adults take medications, and half of U.S. seniors are on four or more prescription drugs.
Among these, statin drugs stand out. Although the statin industry was worth $10 billion in 2019, it is projected to rise to $1 trillion per year worldwide, despite patent expirations. The relentless, multidecade campaign to saturate the market with statins likely aimed to serve Big Pharma's shareholders rather than public health. Denying such an influence over the medical industry would be naïve.
A newfound appreciation for our immune system and the essential roles of cholesterol and Vitamin-D in human health may eventually eclipse and even reverse our collective fascination with statin drugs.
We hope this article helps those of you taking statins, gain a better understanding of the drug itself, as well as the 30,000ft view of the industry, and how it operates within the healthcare community at large. Having more information is always a good thing, and only leads to enlightenment. Now take that light and shine on my friends, and share the news with those that need it most!
"Till next time, remember, attitudes are contagious, is yours worth catching?", Quote from Brandon Roberts.
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