After last week’s newsletter on statins and the cholesterol myth, I was inundated with replies. It’s clear this topic strikes a nerve and not just with me. Many of you are questioning the narrative you’ve been sold and, like me, are looking for a more natural and truthful path to protecting your heart health.
Jacky wrote to say she was persuaded to go on statins because of her family history, as her father had a heart attack, and both her grandmother and mother had strokes. “I was very much against it,” she told me, “but gave in.” After breaking out in a rash on her first statin, she was told to stop, then start again once the reaction had passed. But the next one brought diarrhoea and made her feel even worse. Now 78, she’s done with it. “Most of my friends are taking them,” she said, “but I’m researching something natural. I’d rather do that.”
Cholesterol Isn’t the Villain We’ve Been Told It Is
I can’t tell you how many similar stories I’ve heard, with people feeling pressured into taking statins despite serious side effects, nagging doubts, or simply wanting to pursue another way. The pharmaceutical machine thrives on fear. And cholesterol, unfortunately, has become the perfect target: a complex, misunderstood biological process turned into a simple, scary number.
As Dr Malcolm Kendrick puts it, cholesterol isn’t the problem; it’s a messenger, part of the body’s repair system. When arteries are damaged by inflammation, poor diet, stress or environmental toxins, cholesterol is sent in like a Band-Aid. Blaming cholesterol for heart disease is like blaming firefighters for house fires; they’re just there doing their job.
Pam wrote to me last week with her and her husband’s story. Despite a cholesterol reading of 11.9 at age 42, her husband, now 81, has excellent heart health and arteries “of a 50-year-old.” He follows a whole-food, plant-rich diet. “Neither of us believe all the hype about statins,” she wrote, “and fervently resist taking them.”
It’s stories like these that push me to keep digging deeper, to keep asking who really benefits from the cholesterol panic. As Pam said, Dr Kendrick’s books, The Great Cholesterol Con and The Clot Thickens, completely dismantle the mainstream narrative with logic, humour, and science.
Global Voices, Shared Experiences
And it’s not just in the UK. Isaac from Nigeria shared how the constant fear around cholesterol had restricted his diet for years. “Those who benefit from the myth kept some of us who are ignorant under bondage of fear,” he wrote, “consuming statin drugs as food to lower cholesterol.” He was grateful to learn about natural alternatives, but reminded me that not all the options I mentioned, like bergamot, are readily available in his part of the world. That’s an important point. For those in West Africa, local heart-friendly foods like bitter kola, garlic, okra, turmeric, unprocessed palm oil (in moderation), moringa, and fermented foods can all play a role in reducing inflammation and supporting cardiovascular health.
These personal accounts highlight a shared truth: many of us instinctively know that something isn’t right with how cholesterol is handled in modern medicine. We want more than a prescription pad solution. We want the why, not just the what. And more than that, we want to be treated like thinking, feeling individuals and not statistics in a drug company’s spreadsheet.
Final Thoughts
So please, keep the messages coming. If you’ve been pressured onto statins, if you’ve found a natural approach that works for you, or if you’re still figuring it all out, I want to hear from you. Your story matters.
Because when we speak up, we realise we’re not alone. And maybe, just maybe, we can start unravelling the cholesterol myth for good.
