We are told that statin therapies are helpful and that lowering your cholesterol is a good thing. Trace the pathway of cholesterol metabolism (in the diagram) in the body and see how early in the manufacture of cholesterol, statins interfere with and break an essential chain of life.
Things to note:
The substances that are written in green are essential to life and good health. Note that the word STATINS (written in brown) appears under the third part of enzyme activity, HMG-CoA reductase (written in blue)
An enzyme is a protein that accelerates chemical reactions. The substances that appear (written in black) are the products of each chemical reaction. The substances that are (written in green) are all essential to a healthy body.
The significance of this particular diagram is that it clearly shows how early within this metabolic pathway (the Mevalonate pathway) statins are able to exert an effect. Statins are inhibiting all of the substances that appear in green writing.
Even if we were able to agree that lowering cholesterol was a good thing, we can still see that the suppression of other vital processes, within the Mevalonate pathway, cannot be prevented from taking place.
Click on this link (A Layperson's View) to understand to return to the previous page.
More detailed explanations of the biochemistry involved can be found by clicking on the following link (Simple Biochemistry)
