cholesterol lowering, blood pressure lowering drugs etc. has no net positive effect
Why do you say this?
As I recall, at least one of the cholesterol lowering drugs has in fact been demonstrated to lower risk of subsequent heart attacks. It probably does that by forcing the liver to convert more LDL to HDL. High doses of niacin (which I also take) does the same thing. High doses of niacin also increase the risk of liver cancer and cirrhosis. OTOH, if you're looking at a serious risk of a heart attack within a few years that most likely will kill you, that can be an acceptable risk.
And drugs that lower blood pressure also lower risk, assuming that you also get a decent amount of exercise. That 's the hard part, though. Lowered blood pressure means lowered oxygen supply to the muscles which means they don't want to exercise.
And how do you propose to cure people? Prevention can usually be effective, but all the lard bellies walking around tell us how effective that is. "Cure" might consist of angioplasty- -IF cholesterol levels are kept down afterwards. If not, the arteries clog up again. Control of diet usually lowers cholesterol, but is difficult long term. And doesn't always work. My problem is a lazy liver- -it does a poor job of converting LDL to HDL. Even with strict diet, my LDL and HDL/LDL ratio will not drop to acceptable levels. Hence cholesterol-lowering drugs and niacin.
Another common approach is bypass surgery. BUT then veins are substituted in place of arteries and they can't take the higher pressure and pounding long term. Somewhere around 10 years out the operation usually has to be repeated. With all its risks.
It's easy to extol the virtues of all-natural approaches- -until they don't work and it's YOU. |
