Dr. Shawn’s Blog

Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs and CRP-I’m Right Again

Two years ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who’s a big wig drug salesman for the giant pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck. He makes a lot of money selling their drugs, including their blockbuster cholesterol-lowering drug Mevacor, to large hospitals and doctor groups.

I mentioned to him that elevated blood cholesterol levels were not a major cause for coronary artery disease. Instead, other factors including elevated levels of fibrinogen, homocysteine, and CRP produced inflammation which then caused coronary artery disease. He disagreed with me (no surprise.) My friend told me that Merck recently had their cardiologist talk to their sales force, teaching them that elevated blood cholesterol levels were the only factor responsible for heart disease and that elevated CRP was totally meaningless.

I knew I could not convince him otherwise. He bought the company line, and since he made a large amount of money selling a cholesterol-lowering drug (that most people do not need,) I knew he would not be open to hearing the truth about coronary artery disease. Since he was also a good friend and I did want to get into an argument with him, I let the matter drop. I did however ask him why, if elevated blood cholesterol levels were so important in the genesis of coronary artery disease, there were many people dying of coronary artery disease who had normal blood cholesterol levels. He was unable to answer the question, but reiterated that people with elevated blood cholesterol levels must be placed on cholesterol-lowering drugs or they would die of coronary artery disease.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I noticed that Merck and other manufacturers of cholesterol-lowering drugs are now advertising that these drugs, in addition to lowering cholesterol levels, also lower…….CRP levels!

Wow. I guess I was correct several years ago when I tried convincing my friend of the importance of elevated CRP levels.
It’s nice that drug companies are now admitting something we’ve known for over 10 years.

However, since the drug companies have refused to acknowledge, until recently, the importance of elevated CRP levels, there are only two possible conclusions to this “recent” discovery by the drug companies.

1.CRP levels really are important as a factor in coronary artery disease.
2.CRP levels are not important, which has been the drug company mantra until recently. If this is the case, who cares if their cholesterol-lowering drugs now also lower CRP levels, since CRP levels are meaningless.

Now that the drug companies have discovered that their cholesterol-lowering drugs also lower CRP, it’s interesting to see that they have made an about-face on their insistence for many years that cholesterol levels were the only important factor in causing coronary artery disease.

Of course there are many natural therapies that can also lower CRP and cholesterol levels, without the expense or danger of serious side effects (muscle damage, kidney failure, dementia, etc.) posed by cholesterol-lowering drugs.

I guess this just shows that I was right all along, and the skeptics who kept denying the importance of other risk factors for coronary artery disease have proven to be wrong yet again.

“Keep an open mind, and you’ll be amazed at the level of healing you can attain.”

Once again those who favor natural therapies are years ahead of the close minded conventional mainstream.