Life without Lipitor

25. June 2010 William Davis (17)
One of the most common reasons people come to my office is to correct high cholesterol values without Lipitor. (Substitute "Lipitor" with Crestor, simvastatin, Vytorin, or any of the other cholesterol drugs; it's much the same.)

In the world of conventional healthcare, in which you are instructed to follow a diet that increases risk for heart disease and not advised to correct nutrient deficiencies like vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, then a drug like Lipitor may indeed provide benefit.

But when you are provided genuinely effective information on diet, along with correction of nutrient deficiencies, then the "need" and apparent benefits of Lipitor largely dissolve. While there are occasional genetic anomalies that can improve with use of Lipitor and other statins, many, perhaps most, people taking these drugs really would not have to if they were just provided the right information.

Anyone following the discussions on these pages knows that wheat elimination is probably one of the most powerful overall health strategies available. Wheat elimination reduces real measured LDL quite dramatically. Provided you limit other carbohydrates, such as those from fruits, as well, LDL can drop like a stone. That's not what your doctor tells you. This approach works because elimination of wheat and limiting other carbohydrates reduces small LDL. Small LDL particles are triggered by carbohydrates, especially wheat; reducing carbohydrates reduces small LDL. Conventional LDL of the sort obtained in your doctor's office will not show this, since it is a calculated value that appears to increase with reduced carbohydrates, a misleading result.

Throw vitamin D normalization and iodine + thyroid normalization into the mix (both are exceptionally common), and you have two additional potent means to reduce (measured) LDL. Not restricting fat but increasing healthy fat intake, such as the fats in lots of raw nuts, olive oil, and flaxseed oil reduce LDL.

While I still prescribe statins now and then, a growing number of people are succeeding without them.

(Note that by "measured" LDL I am referring to the "gold standard," LDL particle number by NMR provided by Liposcience. A second best is measured Apoprotein B available through most conventional labs.)
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Comments (17) -

  • Anonymous

    6/25/2010 5:19:20 PM |

    Hi Dr. Davis,

    I follow much of your advice.  On my NMR, I had an LDL of 50 and particle number of "less than 300".  Also, HDL was 82.  My LDL particle size was 21.1.  Large VLDL was 2.6 nmol/L (and the share of large VLDL was above the reference range), but I did the test postprandially.  My small LDL was "less than 90".  Interestingly, last year, my LDL particle number was 530 and small LDL was 120, but LDL size was larger at 22.3.  Is there anything to make of this?

  • Anonymous

    6/25/2010 7:02:42 PM |

    I'd like to see a discussion of what you'd do for a patient who didn't eat wheat, was on a LC diet, ate a lot of fish, had high vitamin D levels, had normal thyroid tests and still had high LDL levels.

  • Dan

    6/25/2010 7:31:34 PM |

    My father takes Lipitor.  He's also suffering from occasional short term memory loss (he's visiting a neurologist often to figure out why).  I'm damn sure it's because of the statins.  I've been on the "no wheat" & high good fat diet for a while and am in great shape.  I Can't get my father to ditch the drug and adopt my diet though (even if he does, I'm not sure if the memory issue will resolve itself).  Going against conventional wisdom is a constant uphill battle.

  • JamesSteeleII

    6/25/2010 9:07:32 PM |

    "...then the "need" and apparent benefits of Lipitor largely dissolve."

    I was unaware that there was any research supporting statin use at all except maybe in one group (men under 65 with pre-existing conditions) which is still questionable. Could you further explain what this 'need' might actually be in abscence of such dietary intervention?

  • mongander

    6/26/2010 1:58:26 AM |

    8 months ago my 91 year old mother was out of her mind in the hospital.  She had no idea where she was and was too weak to walk to the bathroom.  She was falling frequently.

    Now that she's off lipitor she has a new lease on life.  She works in her flower garden and bathes herself.  

    I'm now her caregiver and ensure that she takes 5 to 10 thousand iu of D3, Iodoral, 200 mg Ubiquinol, and a couple of grams of fishoil, but the biggest move, in my opinion, was taking her off Lipitor.

    We have no family history of heart disease.

  • Anonymous

    6/26/2010 10:38:27 AM |

    This advice works!

  • David M Gordon

    6/26/2010 2:08:23 PM |

    I know you intended "Life without Lipitor" to be for all your readers, Dr. Davis, but you might as well have written it for me (because of my earlier importunate and selfish request). Thank you.

    Some things I still do not get, noted as they appear in your post:
    1) Eliminate fruit?! Fruit, rich with nutrients, now is bad because fruit also comes packed with sugar (its complex carbs)? I respect the notion to eliminate carbs, especially wheat and other grains, but this notion seems rather... narrow. HELP!
    2) "Conventional LDL of the sort obtained in your doctor's office": What test is this? Do you mean the phlebotomist (in the doctor's office) who sends the blood sample to Quest or LabCorp to obtain the calculated score?

    Thank you for these, and all future clarifications. And for this site, of course.

    Best wishes,

  • Anonymous

    6/26/2010 3:14:47 PM |

    while you seem to recommend nuts be a part of the diet, what do you tell your patients who are allergic to nuts?  Peanuts ok?

  • D.M.

    6/26/2010 5:05:55 PM |

    Agree with much of the article but not sure about this:

    "increasing healthy fat intake, such as the fats in lots of raw nuts, olive oil, and flaxseed oil reduce LDL."

    All of these will contain unnaturally* large amounts of omega 6 (at least 9g/100g of almonds or olive oil, for example, or 12g/100 for flax oil). This will unquestionably drive up oxidised (atherogenic) LDL cholesterol. (See WholeHealthSource for details). Is there any reason at all to think that natural saturated fat isn't a far safer option (that will drive up HDL)? I can understand why one would worry at saturated fat increasing "cholesterol" back in the day before we could analyse lipid fractions, but what reason do we have to think it would have negative effects now?

  • Hans Keer

    6/26/2010 5:16:20 PM |

    Very good doc. I hope you come to the point that you will no longer subscribe statins at all.

  • Anonymous

    6/27/2010 3:39:41 AM |

    DM Wrote:

    All of these will contain unnaturally* large amounts of omega 6 (at least 9g/100g of almonds or olive oil, for example, or 12g/100 for flax oil). This will unquestionably drive up oxidised (atherogenic) LDL cholesterol. (See WholeHealthSource for details). Is there any reason at all to think that natural saturated fat isn't a far safer option (that will drive up HDL)? I can understand why one would worry at saturated fat increasing "cholesterol" back in the day before we could analyse lipid fractions, but what reason do we have to think it would have negative effects now?

    ----------------

    Hi DM, I was the first anonymous up top.  I follow Dr. Davis' advice and eat lots of omega-6 rich nuts and, as you can see from the numbers above, my LDL and HDL look pretty good.  Also, my crp was .18 mg/L which is quite low and lp(a) was 2, so I doubt I have much inflammation/oxidation etc.

  • Jeff@muscle mass building

    6/28/2010 4:02:55 PM |

    What are lipitors? Is there any substitute for lipitors?

  • Jeff@muscle mass building

    6/28/2010 4:02:55 PM |

    What are lipitors? Is there any substitute for lipitors?

  • Anonymous

    6/28/2010 7:08:43 PM |

    I've been taking off the shelf Red Yeast Rice instead of lipitor. Works great! My LDL cholesterol went down down down.

    -- Boris

  • D.M.

    6/29/2010 6:01:04 PM |

    @ Anonymous-with-pretty-good-cholesterol.

    That's good for you, but the studies show that across large groups, omega-6 will raise the amount of oxidised LDL, which is probably a *bad* thing for cardiovascular health. Stephan discusses this here: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/07/diet-heart-hypothesis-oxidized-ldl-part.html and here http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/07/animal-models-of-atherosclerosis-ldl.html

  • Bill Meli

    7/1/2010 6:27:07 PM |

    Does anyone have a sample diet that they follow that is recommended from this website. I have recently eliminated all sugars from my diet and eat 7 small meals a day, but would like some help on seeing a recommended diet that is wheat free, also interested in what supplements people are taking. Thank you!

  • shaheel

    9/27/2010 12:39:49 PM |

    Heart  disease is one of the most  dangerous disease which takes thousands of life every years all over the world. If we know its symptoms and Treatment for heart disease. We can prevent is to large extent.

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Exercise and blood pressure

Exercise and blood pressure

4. April 2007 William Davis (5)
The media has gotten a hold of a case report from the University of Maryland describing a 51-year old physician who, despite being a long distance runner, had a high heart scan score.

An example of the report can be found at

Heart Disease In A Marathon Runner: Is Too Much Exercise A Bad Thing?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315091100.htm in Science Daily.



"The mystery was all the more intriguing because his resting blood pressure and fasting cholesterol levels, the usual measures of cardiovascular health, were in the normal range."


When this man was put on a treadmill for a stress test, his blood pressure skyrocketed from a normal 118/78 to 230/78--extremely high, even for exercise. The physicians reporting the case raised the question of whether long-distance running represents a risk for heart disease and if the high blood pressure with exercise is a contributor or cause of the high heart scan score.

These are phenomena we are very familiar with. We have stressed the importance of exercise blood pressure as a trigger for coronary plaque for years. While 230/78 is clearly too high, we find that any blood pressure over 170/80 with exercise adds to the fire and can trigger plaque growth.

However, I think it is absurd to suggest that marathon running itself is a trigger of coronary plaque. I think it is far more likely that the person described in the report had lipoprotein(a), a potent trigger for both exercise-induced hypertension and high CT heart scan scores in seemingly well people. He likely also suffered from a deficiency of vitamin D deficiency, another contributor. There's no need to indict exercise.

If you are in the Track Your Plaque program, you know that stress tests are of questionable helpfulness for the detection of hidden heart disease. But they are useful for assessment of blood pressure responses during exercise. If BP exceeds 170/80 at 10 mets (a measure of exercise effort achieved by walking 3.4 mph at a 14% grade for 3 minutes), then blood pressure may be a contributor to your heart scan score.
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Comments (5) -

  • Anonymous

    6/8/2007 2:20:00 PM |

    I'm a marathon runner.  I don't have the problem of high blood pressure.  But I suffer from the usual irritations of life.  I found meditation to be useful.  I incorporate it into running as well.  With practice one can keep the heart rate from elevating while running.  If the heart rate is kept down, I assume the blood pressure is also.

  • Dr. Davis

    6/8/2007 3:09:00 PM |

    Unfortunately, that is an unsafe assumption to make.

  • hammarhead

    10/17/2009 2:05:45 PM |

    I am a 50 year old competetive mountain bicyclist. My resting BP is 110/60 and HR is 40. I take 10 mg Lipitor to keep Cholesterol at 175. Annual stress tests have been normal for 10 years. This year in the final 3 minutes BP went up to 170/?. I have now begun taking BP during my workouts and it jumps around from 120/70 - 190/100. should I be worried?

  • Anonymous

    1/17/2010 7:17:56 AM |

    Good post and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you on your information.

  • Tribeast

    2/2/2011 8:49:01 PM |

    Endurance Athletes are known to consume abnormal amounts of Carbohydrates and marathoners are known to carboload before an event and on training so all that pasta bread and bagels probably are the culprit of the doctors plaque!!!

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