Statins are the so-called wonder drugs widely prescribed to lower blood cholesterol levels and claim to offer unparalleled protection against heart disease. Believed to be completely safe and capable of preventing a whole series of other conditions, they are the most profitable drug in the history of medicine. In this groundbreaking book, GP Malcolm Kendrick exposes the truth behind the hype, revealing: high cholesterol levels don't cause heart disease; a high-fat diet - saturated or otherwise - does not affect blood cholesterol levels; and, the protection provided by statins is so small as to be not worth bothering about for most men and all women.Statins have many more side affects than has been admitted and their advocates should be treated with scepticism due to their links with the drugs' manufacturers.Kendrick lambastes a powerful pharmaceutical industry and unquestioning medical profession, who, he claims, perpetuate the madcap concepts of 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol and cholesterol levels to convince millions of people to spend billions of pounds on statins, thus creating an atmosphere of stress and anxiety - the real cause of fatal heart disease.With clarity and wit, "The Great Cholesterol Con" debunks our assumptions on what constitutes a healthy lifestyle and diet. It is the invaluable guide for anyone who thought there was a miracle cure for heart disease, an appeal to common sense and a controversial and fascinating breakthrough that will set dynamite under the whole area.

If you have been told that you must take statins or risk a devastating heart attack or stroke, you need to read this book. Dr Kendrick, a well-known statin sceptic and author of the bestselling The Great Cholesterol Con, has returned to the diet-heart-cholesterol battlefield to warn that people are being conned. In relaxed and humorous style, he lifts the rock to allow the reader to peer underneath. He points out that statins, even in high-risk individuals, increase life expectancy by a mere four days after five years of treatment. Yet adverse effects have been swept under the carpet by researchers who are closely tied to the industry. The way to avoid heart disease, and strokes, is simple - but, as this riveting book shows, it has nothing to do with lowering cholesterol levels.

In this newly updated and re-edited 2012 edition, the side effects of cholesterol lowering statins are thoroughly assessed. Also reviewed are dietary and supplement choices that may offer benefit in the prevention of heart disease and in combating and preventing statin damage. The cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins are of proven benefit for some groups of people for the prevention of heart attacks and stroke, but statins also have a dark side. Tens of thousands of people have been victims of a huge array of statin drugs side effects, ranging from permanent cognitive dysfunction and severe personality change to disabilities from permanent peripheral neuropathy, permanent myopathy and chronic muscular degeneration. It has recently been reported that muscle pain cases frequently become permanent and many neurologists now regard statin neuropathy as predictably resistant to traditional treatment. When statins were first marketed there was seemingly no awareness of possible mitochondrial DNA effect or the importance of glial cell cholesterol to cognitive function and little or no concern that to inhibit cholesterol means to interrupt its pathway shared by both CoQ10 and dolichols and many other vital substances. Nor was it known that statins are powerful anti-inflammatory agents, the fundamental reason for their benefit in cardiovascular risk. The outmoded concept of looking at cholesterol numbers as a predictor of cardiovascular risk is increasingly being dismissed as studies point to cholesterol levels as being seemingly irrelevant to the process of atherosclerosis. In addition to the crisis of thousands of people disabled by statin associated neuro-muscular problems is the fact that many physicians still remain unaware that statins can even do this. Then there is the crisis of the growing trend of the insurance industry to use cholesterol levels as a reason to deny health care coverage or life insurance coverage. Some employers even require cholesterol levels to be below a certain number as a condition of employment. Plus the crisis of patients being forced into taking a statin because not to do so would result in having to find a new doctor. The Statin Damage Crisis looks at how statins work, the importance of cholesterol in the body, inflammation and atherosclerosis, anti-inflammatory alternatives to statins, serious side effects of statins, and dietary supplements of possible benefit to those taking statins or that were forced to stop taking a statin due to unpleasant and even disabling side effects.