Pharmaceutical companies quickly realized just how enormous the market for “Cholesterol Lowering Drugs” truly is. They realized they could quite effectively get you to take a drug for years and years, and which, wasn’t toxic enough to kill you quickly.

These drugs that are suppose to lower cholesterol (statins) generate profits in the tens of billions of dollars every year for big pharma.

To do this they leveraged their marketing efforts to select “experts” in the medical community and got them appointed to government panels making recommendations that were adopted by almost everyone in the medical and health community.

The most recent panel for the US Cholesterol Education Program eight of the nine doctors had clear ties to drug companies. Specifically to the companies making “cholesterol lowering drugs. And the result? You guessed it, revised guidelines that advise people at risk of developing heart disease to lower LDL cholesterol (bad) to extremely low levels.

Up until 2004 having a LDL level of 130 was in the “healthy” range. The new and “improved” guidelines now put the upper limit at 100 for regular patients and 70 for those considered to be at a high risk or heart disease.

To be able to reach and maintain these dangerous and outrageously low targets a patient would need to consume multiple drugs aimed to lower cholesterol. So, the new guidelines artificially boosted the market for these drugs.

Your health is in your hands, and I want you to have the full picture. I hope you understand that most of what you hear from conventional medical practitioners is little more than cleverly disguised marketing.

People are taking Lipitor and other statins to lower cholesterol more then any other class of prescription drugs. Unfortunately, these medications come with side effects.

One of the more common side effects is muscle pain and weakness. This can occur even at standard doses. The use of statins and muscle pain may result from a deficiency in Coenzyme Q10. The statins inhibit the production of Coenzyme Q10. CoQ-10 is a very important nutrient for heart health and is found in every cell in your body.

People taking statins are apt to have pain including aching in the shoulders, pain in the jaw and sore muscles of the legs. The pains result from the actual breakdown of the muscles and the body’s natural process of ridding itself to the waste cells that result.

The symptoms can range from general fatigue all the way to significant and even debilitating pain. These symptoms can develop slowly over time making it difficult to self diagnose.

Natural Alternatives!

To avoid the whole issue of statins and muscle pain, you may want to consider natural alternatives to control your cholesterol

Some options include perilla oil and other sources of omega-3s. Arjuna which is a plant based supplement with amazing cholesterol reducing properties, or niacin supplements which raise your levels of high density lipoproteins that in turn help to lower bad cholesterol. Also look for plant sterol and stanol products. These have been studied for over fifty years and show consistent results in lowering cholesterol. These sterols can be found in a few high quality statin alternative supplements.

Equally important is to be sure that you eat a healthy diet and get enough exercise. These are the foundations of good health and you cannot expect to be well if you are not doing both.