Chapter 2 - Cholesterol, Facts and Fiction

In this chapter, you’ll read some myth-busting, scientific information about cholesterol that’s based on proven facts instead of unsubstantiated opinions. You’ll see information that’s vital for every person to know who’s interested in his or her overall health – information that’s not based merely on insurance charts or drug company sales strategies.

The first thing you’ll need to know about cholesterol is what it’s not. It’s not a death agent that you need to eliminate from your body as much as possible -- not by any stretch of the imagination! In fact, without adequate amounts of cholesterol, you would die very quickly. Your body builds your hormones with cholesterol – all three types of estrogen, testosterone and progesterone, just to name a few. Your body makes bile acids with cholesterol, a substance manufactured in the liver to help enable you to digest fatty foods. Cholesterol is the initial precursor for building neurotransmitters, the chemicals that enable one nerve cell to send its messages to the next. Your entire brain is a giant bundle of interacting nerve cells. So cholesterol is critical for healthy brain and nerve function. It’s said that 80 percent of the brain is cholesterol! (Which should give you some insight into the very real dangers of artificially lowering your cholesterol with drugs like Lipitor, Zocor and other cholesterol lowering drugs!) This is why so many people experience mental fogginess when using anti-cholesterol drugs and are surprised at the sudden clarity of mental functions when they discontinue taking them.

E. C. had been a chiropractic patient of mine for some time. Always wanting to take the best care of his health that he can, he didn’t hesitate when his medical doctor put him on a statin, a cholesterol lowering medication. During the months that followed, at his regular chiropractic appointments, he complained of mental distortion and confusion that was progressively getting worse. Frustrated, he did some research on his own to find out if the anticholesterol drugs might be involved. In the process, he discovered references to the impaired brain function/statin connection. He

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