Don’t think for a second that taking statins means you can eat lots of junk food and not worry about that causing heart disease.
Can statin use counteract the damage caused by bad eating habits?
“That’s a great question because I see this play out in practice all the time,” begins Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a board certified cardiologist and co-founder of Step One Foods.
“People get really complacent about what they eat when they’re on a statin, because no matter what they do, their ‘numbers’ are perfect. But you have to remember that cholesterol readings are only one small clue as to what is going on inside your body.”
Statins vs. Healthy Diet
Dr. Klodas explains, “A good way to think about this is to consider exercise and eating Twinkies. You can get rid of the calories inside a Twinkie by exercising, but you can’t get rid of the biochemical effects that the sugars, fats and preservatives have on all your cells.
“It’s the same with statins and Twinkies. You can mitigate the effects of the sugars and fats on your cholesterol numbers, but you still can’t get rid of the biochemical effects of those same sugars, fats and preservatives on all your cells and you certainly can’t get rid of the calories.”
Think about how long a Twinkie’s shelf life is—superpreservatives!
“Whenever I put someone on a statin I always point out to them that I can make virtually anyone’s cholesterol numbers perfect if I just put them on enough medication.
“But unless they are doing their part in terms of what they eat and how much they exercise, all I’m doing is putting very pretty (and often very expensive) wallpaper over crumbling walls. It may look great, but we really haven’t fixed anything.”
It’s like the analogy with firefighters. You know a fire is nearby. But knocking down the firefighters doesn’t mean the fire disappears.
Statins knock down cholesterol and bad fat numbers, but this doesn’t mean that the inflammation inside the coronary arteries goes away; it’s still raging.
Dr. Klodas continues, “Unfortunately, wallpaper over crumbling walls is too often the norm in medical practice, and many people are placed on statins without first being given the right tools to mitigate the need for these medications.
“This is why I came up with Step One Foods. I wanted to make it really easy, essentially goof-proof, for people to start fixing the walls.”
Statins are easy to take; just pop the pill at bedtime with some water. People want the easy route.
My brother takes statins and has “great numbers,” but eats a lot of processed foods.
Those numbers aren’t the innards of the wall; they are merely the superficial pretty wall paper.
