As you may know, high cholesterol has been blamed for heart disease for many decades. Therefore, medical professionals waged a war against cholesterol prescribing statins and other treatments to lower cholesterol. However, research has shown that cholesterol is not responsible for heart disease and lowering cholesterol actually increases your risk.

Cholesterol—quality over quantity

Again, studies explain that it is the ratio of good to bad cholesterol that raises the risk of heart disease, as opposed to just elevating levels of bad cholesterol. Nevertheless, a healthy heart can be maintained through your diet instead of statins. As a matter of fact, men and women with high cholesterol levels tend to live longer than those with low cholesterol levels. This means that another factor must be involved in heart problems.

The real culprit in Heart Disease is…Inflammation!

Inflammation continues to be an underlying cause of chronic disease. Along with obesity and poor diet, inflammation appears to be the real cause of heart disease if left unchecked. Nevertheless, statins are being prescribed in great numbers to lower cholesterol. At one time, a patient needed a 20 percent risk of heart disease to receive a statin prescription. But now, that risk only has to be 7.5 percent!

You can lower your risk of Heart Disease without Statins

Overall, statins are not safe and ultimately do more harm than good. After all, statins attack the wrong target in cholesterol and do nothing for the real target of inflammation.

• Fortunately, there are several ways you can lower your risk of heart disease naturally:
• Avoid smoking
• Exercise regularly
• Maintain a healthy weight
• Manage stress
• Get plenty of quality sleep
• Detoxify often
• Avoid processed and low-fat foods
• Eat only organic meats, fruits, and vegetables
• Consume bone broths, sprouts, and legumes
• Limit consumption of grains and refined sugar
• Eat traditional fats (i.e. butter, coconut oil)

‘Ask a Mr Vitamins Naturopath’ for personalised advice and supplements you may need to help you maintain a healthy heart.