When MIGHT statins be helpful? 7. April 2011 William Davis (17) I spend a lot of my day bashing statin drugs and helping people get rid of them. But are there instances in which statin drugs do indeed provide real advantage? If someone follows the diet I've articulated in these posts and in the Track Your Plaque program, supplements omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, normalizes thyroid measures, and identifies and corrects hidden genetic sources of cardiovascular risk (e.g., Lp(a)), then are there any people who obtain incremental benefit from use of a statin drug?I believe there are some groups of people who do indeed do better with statin drugs. These include:Apoprotein E4 homozygotesApoprotein E2 homozygotesFamilial combined hyperlipidemia (apoprotein B overproduction and/or defective degradation)Cholesteryl ester transfer protein homozygotes (though occasionally manageable strictly with diet)Familial heterozygous hypercholesterolemia, familial homozygous hypercholesterolemiaOther rare variants, e.g., apo B and C variantsThe vast majority of people now taking statin drugs do NOT have the above genetic diagnoses. The majority either have increased LDL from the absurd "cut your fat, eat more healthy whole grains" diet that introduces grotesque distortions into metabolism (like skyrocketing apo B/VLDL and small LDL particles) or have misleading calculated LDL cholesterol values (since conventional LDL is calculated, not measured).As time passes, we are witnessing more and more people slow, stop, or reverse coronary plaque using no statin drugs. Like antibiotics and other drugs, there may be an appropriate time and situation in which they are helpful, but not for every sneeze, runny nose, or chill. Same with statin drugs: There may be an occasional person who, for genetically-determined reasons, is unable to, for example, clear postprandial (after-eating) lipoproteins from the bloodstream and thereby develops coronary atherosclerotic plaque and heart attack at age 40. But these people are the exception.