Dr Cobb, founder of the miraculous Z-Health, presents this video about a study on the effects of a generic statin drug, Zocor, on the volunteer’s levels of fitness. They did the same moderate exercise regime as another group who were not on statins, but were in other ways comparable in health and fatness and, whereas the statin free group increased cardio fitness by about 13%, the statin group lost an average of 4.5%. Oops.
Dr Cobb also points out that statin drugs reduce heart attacks by about 20%. But even small increases in fitness decrease heart attacks by about 50%.
A reason why statin drugs make fitness levels worse is because of the energy enzyme, CoQ10. This is produced in the body along the same pathway as cholesterol, so lower cholesterol and you lower CoQ10. The linked blog has more details. Taking a very high quality CoQ10 supplement will help offset the effects of the statin taken. What is disgraceful is that the drug companies know this. One company, Merck, nearly put CoQ10 into its statin, following trials. This made their statin more expensive than competitors’, and so they just patented that sort of statin rather than putting it on the market, and marketed their CoQ10 free statin, Lovastatin. Kerching being more important than our muscles going boing.
To be blunt, if the doctor is giving us a hard time about our cholesterol levels, moving our lardy arses about a bit more will improve our chances of avoiding a heart attack plus make us feel an awful lot better than shovelling down a pill everyday. If pill shovelling is preferred to a bit of activity, then adding an expensive CoQ10 supplement will help offset the lack of energy and depression caused by the statin.