TN50#200_”Statins Are The Devil” Or So I’ve Been Told_23 September_2025
Hi Team,
Wow, we are almost into the 4th Quarter of 2025! And when I say “4th Quarter” I mean that more in a football kinda way verses a publicly traded company kinda way because I’m just that kinda guy.
I had big plans for TN50#200 going back months but every time I’d go to work on it something in the national or global news would make me so stinking sad that I put it off. That blog will eventually be written and when it is it will most likely make sense to you all.
Today, I want to talk about a boring AND potentially Life Saving little pharmaceutical called – statins.
First, some background. My Pops tried statins back in the 20th Century and he was one of a small group (8%-ish) of people who had a bad reaction to them in the form of muscle pain; he stopped taking them and the pain went away. Pops died in 2019 and it wasn’t from a heart attack.
My personal journey with high cholesterol has been more, or maybe less, informed. I have been paying attention to my high cholesterol for over a decade. Back at the beginning of my “I should pay attention to this” phase a lot of what I read and what made since to me was that high LDL having anything to do with heart disease is BS because over half of the people who have a heart attack have low measured LDL. AND, a lot of people I respected seemed to have a “statins are the devil” world view and who was I to argue; plus doing nothing was way easier than dancing the devil!
During this same decade+ timeframe I have been 1000% more focused on my personal performance in a health span kinda way vs. a commando kinda way. I had my EAT plan pretty dialed in for: great energy, low inflammation, no hunger and excellent body composition. The one thing that didn’t improve along with these other 4 factors were my lipid markers. For years I listened to Peter Attia say things like, “if you have your diet dialed in so that it supports a great lifestyle AND you have lipid issues, use pharmaceuticals to clean up the lipid issue” (my paraphrase). And for years I ignored this advice because half the people I respected on these types of topics say that “lipids are the devil” (again my paraphrase).
Another development during this time frame was the popularity of a new blood test that measured a lipid level called ApoB, this marker recently became the new standard for measuring all the bad cholesterol in your blood.
The one dangerous lipid that ApoB doesn’t catch is lp(a). Do you know that one??? lp(a) is a genetic lipid issue and requires its own blood test – if you don’t know your lp(a) please ask your doc for the test). Especially if you have heart disease in your family tree!
Ok, back to ApoB. Again, ApoB simply stated measures all the bad lipids in one go AND the number is directly associated with cardiovascular disease. Meaning the higher your ApoB the more likely you are to have a cardiovascular event.
So I’m paying attention to all this and even coaching clients on how to get their doc to prescribe a statin based on their 30-year risk profile and still not taking a statin myself. My superhero complex still had me believing that I wasn’t really scared of heart disease. For me the scariest of the 4 Horsemen of Western Disease was, and is, the dementia related diseases.
Then one day I heard Attia say, “what’s good for the heart is good for the brain”. This statement immediately made sense from a vascular standpoint and kinda made me feel like a jack ass for not putting this very simple concept together on my own. Watch out dementia related disease, rosuvastatin is coming for you!
So last year before starting a statin I measured my ApoB and hit my highest number so far, 119. To put that in perspective here in the US, the lab standards are green below 90 and guys like Dr. Peter Attia and Dr. Tom Dayspring say you should shoot for and can easily get the number down in the 40 range. Within a few months of taking the lowest dose of rosuvastatin there is, 5mg, my ApoB measured at 71. Yep, 119 to 71; so if my phone calculator math is correct that is a drop over 40% with no side effects that I can speak of at this time.
Next, I might add ezetimibe to the RX stack and see if I can knock another 20+ points off that 71; more on that in a future blog. That would put my prescriptions up to 2; and to be clear if I personally feel a pharmaceutical can help me live my best life I am completely on board with taking it!
I’m not attaching any links to podcast or articles on this one because most of you don’t access them BUTT, if you want to read or listen to some background information on what I’ve covered in this blog just shoot me an email and I’ll gladly send you as much or as little as you care to consume.
NOW, does this mean I won’t die of a cardiovascular event tomorrow or eventually get dementia or have a stroke? Absolutely NOT. There are no earthly guarantees in life but like I’ve always said to my kids:
“If this was easy it would be boring!”
Please share this with your friends!
Have a good one,
Alex
PS. Questions on your personal performance? Let me know at: alex@fpp.llc
PPS. If you’re new to First Principles Performance Coaching, here’s a one stop shop for my stuff.
PPPS. Ready to improve your Physical, Mental and Emotional Capacity? Email me so I can introduce you to my suite of Better Basics Performance Coaching Programs! alex@fpp.llc
