9. Cholesterol's Benefits to Longevity

The broad spectrum of severe disabilities with increased prevalence in statin side effect reviews all point toward a general trend of increased frailty and mental decline with long-term statin therapy, things that are usually associated with old age. I would in fact best characterize statin therapy as a mechanism to allow you to grow old faster. A highly enlightening study involved a population of elderly people who were monitored over a 17 year period, beginning in 1990 (Tilvis et al., 2011). The investigators looked at an association between three different measures of cholesterol and manifestations of decline. They measured indicators associated with physical frailty and mental decline, and also looked at overall longevity. In addition to serum cholesterol, a biometric associated with the ability to synthesize cholesterol (lathosterol) and a biometric associated with the ability to absorb cholesterol through the gut (sitosterol) were measured.

Low values of all three measures of cholesterol were associated with a poorer prognosis for frailty, mental decline and early death. A reduced ability to synthesize cholesterol showed the strongest correlation with poor outcome. Individuals with high measures of all three biometrics enjoyed a 4.3 year extension in life span, compared to those for whom all measures were low. Since statins specifically interfere with the ability to synthesize cholesterol, it is logical that they would also lead to increased frailty, accelerated mental decline, and early death.

For both ALS and heart failure, survival benefit is associated with elevated cholesterol levels. A statistically significant inverse correlation was found in a study on mortality in heart failure. For 181 patients with heart disease and heart failure, half of those whose serum cholesterol was below 200 mg/dlk were dead three years after diagnosis, whereas only 28% of the patients whose serum cholesterol was above 200 mg/dl had died. In another study on a group of 488 patients diagnosed with ALS, serum levels of triglycerides and fasting cholesterol were measured at the time of diagnosis (Dorstand et al., 2010). High values for both lipids were associated with improved survival, with a p-value < 0.05.

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