Statins are widely prescribed to lower cholesterol in large numbers of the general population because they have been shown in research to reduce LDL-cholesterol levels. Statins are a group of 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors. They can reduce serum cholesterol because HMG-CoA reductase is the rate-limiting step in the mevalonate pathway, a pathway that synthesises isoprenoids and cholesterol. However, evidence supporting their benefits is controversial because many studies show that while cardiovascular deaths decrease during statins use, overall mortality does not change. Diet is generally ignored by mainstream medicine because statins are seem as effective. Initial research attempting to lower cholesterol levels with low-cholesterol diets was unsuccessful, but more recently research has highlighted a number of functional foods that are effective at lowering cholesterol levels in humans. These foods include viscous fibres, soy protein, plant sterols and nuts.
To investigate the comparative effects of diet and statin drugs on cholesterol levels in humans, researchers1 fed 34 hyperlipidaemic subjects either a stain, a cholesterol reducing diet or a control diet. Each subject tried all three diets for 1 month followed by a 2 to 6 week washout period. The statin group took 20 mg of lovastatin per day. The diet group consumed a diet high in plant sterols (from sterol fortified margarine; 1.0 g / 1000 kcal), soy protein foods (including soy milk, soy burgers; 21.4 g/1000 kcal), almonds (14 g/1000 kcal), and viscous fibres from oats, barley, psylium, and the vegetables okra and eggplant (10 g/1000 kcal). The control group ate a low-saturated fat diet. The results showed that LDL-cholesterol was lowered by 33.3 % in the statin group, by 29.6 % in the diet group, and by 8.5 % in the control group.
These results are interesting because they show that dietary manipulation can be as effective as drug intervention with respect to cholesterol lowering in hyperlipidaemic individuals. The statin and diet group did not differ significantly in their ability to lower cholesterol below the 3.4 mmol/L primary prevention cut-off and 9 of the subjects achieved their lowest cholesterol levels in the diet group. In is worth noting that there are other foods that could have been included in the diet because they are known to reduce cholesterol levels, and these include garlic and tocotrienols. Importantly, statins are known to cause side effects in those that use them including muscle weakness and pain. The dietary treatments that made up this research have an exceptional safety record and are functional foods widely eaten by large percentages of the World’s population.
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