The sad truth is that cholesterol, our supposed
enemy for 35 years, has nothing to do with cardiovascular disease. it
is the most important biochemical in your
body.
Dr. Graveline has an
interesting background that makes him particularly suited to speak on the
topic of statin drugs. He's a medical doctor with 23 years of experience
whose health was seriously damaged by a statin drug. His personal questions
brought him out of retirement to investigate statins, which he's been doing
for the past 10 years.
As a former astronaut, he
would get annual physicals at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In 1999
his cholesterol hit 280 and he was given a prescription for
Lipitor.

"When they suggested Lipitor (10 mg), I went
along with it because I had no reason to be particularly worried about
statin drugs," he says. "I had used it a year or so before my retirement,
but I wasn't a big
user."

However, it quickly became
apparent that something was seriously
wrong.

"It was six weeks later when I experienced my
first episode of what was later diagnosed as transient global amnesia,"
Dr. Graveline says.
"This is an unusual form of amnesia wherein
you immediately, without the slightest warning, are unable to formulate
new memory and you can no longer communicate. Not because you cannot talk,
but you can't remember the last syllable that was spoken to you. So
nothing you say is relevant anymore. In addition, you have a retrograde
loss of memory, sometimes decades into the past."

He "woke up" about six hours
later in the office of a neurologist, who gave him the diagnosis: transient
global amnesia. He quit taking the Lipitor despite the reassurances from his
doctors that the drug was not of concern, and that it was just a
coincidence.
He had no relapses during the
remainder of the year, but his cholesterol was still around 280 at his next
physical. He was again urged to take Lipitor, and he
relented.

"I admit I was concerned, but I had talked to
maybe 30 doctors and a few pharmacologists during the interval," Dr.
Graveline says. "They all said "statins don't do that." So I allowed
myself to go back on statins but this time I took just 5
mg.
…[E]ight weeks later, I had my second, and my
worst episode. In this one, I was a 13-year-old high school student for 12
hours... This is what convinced me, when I finally woke up, that something
was wrong with the statin drugs. And yet, the doctors were, for years
after that, still saying that this was just a remarkable coincidence.

This took me out of
retirement and I've been actively involved in researching statin drugs ever
since."

Statin Drugs: Not Nearly as Safe
as You're Told

Dr. Graveline has since
published a book about his discoveries called How Statin Drugs Wreck Your
Muscles