My cholesterol used to be quite high: my LDL reached 4.9 mmol/L. With lifestyle changes, I managed to bring it down to 3.5, and then with bergamot supplements, I got it down further to 2.7. I’m personally satisfied with these results.
However, when I posted about this, I received criticism from multiple people saying that lowering cholesterol with bergamot doesn’t actually improve cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. This feels a bit logically inconsistent to me.
It’s clear that statins reduce CVD risk. But statins are primarily prescribed for high cholesterol, and dosage decisions are largely based on how much they lower LDL. If clinical trials show that lowering LDL with something like bergamot doesn’t reduce CVD risk, wouldn’t that imply that LDL itself isn’t the real cause of the risk?
And if LDL is only a secondary marker, why is it used to determine the dosage of statins, the very drugs considered most effective at reducing CVD risk?
I’m genuinely trying to understand this, not argue. Because if LDL lowered by non-statin methods doesn’t improve CVD risk, then it should also follow that higher LDL doesn’t necessarily mean higher risk compared to lower LDL.
I don’t want to sound conspiratorial, but this makes me wonder if there’s some pharmaceutical bias involved.