Advocates for statin drugs to lower cholesterol levels are getting out of hand. Suggestions about adding them to drinking water are popping up. Unfortunately, the facts that get lost in all this anti-cholesterol babbling are the benefits of cholesterol. The fact is that cholesterol is a crucial component of good health. Indeed, people with high cholesterol live the longest. This statement seems so incredible that it takes a long time to clear one´s brainwashed mind to fully understand its importance. Yet the fact that people with high cholesterol live the longest emerges clearly from many scientific papers. On the other hand, low cholesterol levels lead to several health problems. At best, cholesterol levels might be a secondary indicator for cardiovascular risk, which means that other causes link cholesterol and disease.

Just to offer a balanced view of the importance of cholesterol, here is a short list of what it does for you:

• Cell membranes contain cholesterol to help control everything that goes into and out of your cells
• When cells and tissues are damaged, cholesterol helps repair them
• Cholesterol is a powerful antioxidant that limits damage caused by free radicals
• Without cholesterol, your memory would be faulty and your brain would not function properly
• Bile, the substance that helps you digest dietary fat has got cholesterol in it
• Many of your hormones need cholesterol to be formed properly – including sex hormones such as testosterone and progesterone, and hormones that control stress
• Cholesterol is involved in controlling inflammation all around your body, so preventing diseases from taking hold
• Cholesterol is involved in very important vitamin D production in your skin with the help of sunlight
• Your liver makes up to 1,000 mg of cholesterol a day for you, so you can survive and thrive

So you see, artificially lowering your cholesterol put all of the above benefits in jeopardy. It is no wonder that the statin drugs have so many harmful side effects.

Cholesterol and Longevity

Consider the finding of Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, who reported in 1994 that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from a heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol. Supporters of the cholesterol campaign consistently ignore his observation, or consider it as a rare exception, produced by chance among a huge number of studies finding the opposite.

This observation is, however, not an exception. There are now many more studies that contradict the mainstream medical view that cholesterol is bad for your health and must be controlled. To be more specific, most studies of old people have shown that high cholesterol is not a risk factor for coronary heart disease and that high cholesterol does not predict mortality. The latest results are clear.

What About Cardiovascular Disease Now?

The 1994 feature article in Time magazine that pointed the way for preventing and treating cardiovascular disease was all about inflammation. This is the key to most modern chronic diseases. The simple logic is that, if inflammation is the cause of cardiovascular disease, then preventing or reversing disease requires stopping excessive inflammation.

The good news is that, even if your inflammation load has already damaged your cardiovascular system, the damage can be stopped and even reversed with the appropriate natural products. Several common ingredients have been shown to be useful based on solid scientific research. The best combination that I have found is mixture of systemic enzymes and antioxidants that have been put together into a product called Trevinol ES Fibrin Defense Complex. You can read much more about what this product does and how it works by clicking on this link. It is a phenomenal combination of well-established heart-healthy natural products with the most recent substances that science now has to offer for keeping your heart and vascular system fine-tuned.