Journal, Winter 2013, Beyond Cholesterol

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FEATURES

• Beyond Cholesterol  Chris Masterjohn, PhD, explains the importance of vitamin K2 in preventing heart disease
• Cancer to the Rescue Stephanie Seneff, PhD, describes a surprising role for cancer cells
• Grain Traditions from Russia Natalia Adarova reveals the secrets of Russian bread, a sacred food

DEPARTMENTS

• President’s Message: Statin Madness
• Letters: Letters to the Editor of Wise Traditions
• Caustic Commentary: Sally Fallon Morell takes on the Diet Dictocrats
• Lab Report WAPF sponsors an analysis of fatty acids in grain-fed and grass-fed beef
• Farm and Ranch: Kay Baxter envisages gardening for the fat-soluble activators
• Technology as Servant John Moody provides choices in natural clothing
• Homeopathy Journal: How Joette Calabrese’s father outlived his cardiologists!
• All Thumbs Book Reviews
  • Thumbs Up
    • Low Cholesterol Leads to an Early Death
    • Eating on the Wild Side
    • The Skin, Tongue and Nails Speak
    • Grain Brain
    • Guide to Healing Chronic Pain
    • The Sugarmaker’s Companion
  • Thumbs Down
    • Use Your Brain to Change Your Age

• Tim’s DVD Reviews
  • Thumbs Up
    • The Cheese Nun
    • Natural Beekeeping
  • Thumbs Down
    • Vegucated
• Legislative Update: Judith McGeary, Esq, food safety and the FDA
• Soy Alert: Kaayla Daniel, PhD, on soy, men and strength training
• A Campaign for Real Milk:
  • The Campaign to Pasteurize Breast Milk
  • Michael Hartmann Case, Minnesota
  • Lawton’s Family Farm Case, Massachusetts
  • Rural Vermont’s Raw Milk Summit a Success!
  • State Updates
• Healthy Baby Gallery: More Wise Traditions babies!
  

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President’s Message

by Sally Fallon Morell

The American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) have released new cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines which would greatly expand the use of statins in healthy people. The guidelines recommend them for about 44 percent of men and 22 percent of all healthy women between the ages of forty and seventy-five. According to calculations, over thirteen million healthy people for whom statins were not recommended based on the 2001 guidelines now fall into the category of requiring statin “therapy.” Although billed as a non-profit organization, the AHA received over five hundred million dollars in donations from non-government and non-membership sources in 2012. Many well-known large drug companies, including those that make statins, donate in the million dollar range.

The new recommendations come in the teeth of new findings on statin side effects. For example, the Women’s Health Initiative, a federal study of over one hundred sixty thousand healthy women, showed that a woman’s risk of developing diabetes increased 48 percent compared to women who were not on a statin; if their weight was normal, statins increased their risk of diabetes 89 percent. Other well-documented side effects include muscle pain, weakness, cataracts, cognitive dysfunction, nerve damage, liver injury and kidney failure.

The new guidelines will aim at increased “compliance.” Even at 100 percent compliance, the cost of saving one life from statin therapy is estimated at two hundred fifty thousand dollars per year; at current compliance, which ranges from 25-65 percent (depending on the study), that cost goes to one million dollars. (The industry admits that a major contributor to non-compliance is the glut of information on the Internet on the adverse effects of statins.)

In addition to serving as a mouthpiece for statins, the AHA also rakes in millions from food companies to gain the “heart check mark” recommendation from the AHA, renewable, at a price, every year. The foods that receive the mark have to be low in fat, especially saturated fat, and cholesterol, thus furthering the appalling dietary advice that is pulling Americans inexorably down into the abyss of chronic disease.

Even the most avid statin proponents admit that the drug does not prevent 60 to 80 percent of cardiac events. How can we stop this statin madness? Only by saying no ourselves and by bringing up a generation of children who understand the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs. Eventually those who choose the pharmaceutical model as a way of preventing disease will die out, leaving a wiser generation to embrace saner ways of eating and more holistic approaches to health.

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