Statin cholesterol-lowering drugs are widely touted as the best way to lower your cholesterol and thereby prevent a heart attack. They’re recommended to people who have “high cholesterol,” those who have heart disease, and even for some healthy people as a form of preventive medicine.

Statins are among the most widely prescribed drugs on the market, with more than 1 in 4 Americans over 45 taking them. This already inflated number is set to increase significantly due to draft recommendations issued earlier this year by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).

This federal advisory board recommended statin treatment for people between the ages of 40 and 75 with a 10 percent or greater risk of heart problems in the next 10 years (based on the 2013 AHA-ACC online calculator¹) — even if they have not had a previous heart attack or stroke.

Needless to say, if you’re a U.S. adult aged 40 or beyond, there’s a good chance your doctor may bring up statins at your next visit, so you need to do your homework to determine if these drugs are truly right for you —  and there’s a good chance they’re not.

 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Take Statins

1. They Don’t Work

Statin drugs work to lower cholesterol, and as your levels fall, you may assume that is proof that you’re getting healthier and lowering your risk of heart disease and heart attack. But that would be far from the truth.

There is far more that goes into your risk of heart disease than your cholesterol levels. Further, there is evidence showing that statins may actually make your heart health worse and only appear effective due to statistical deception.

One report published in the Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology concluded that statin advocates used a statistical tool called relative risk reduction (RRR) to amplify statins’ trivial beneficial effects.²

If you look at absolute risk, statin drugs benefit just 1 percent of the population. This means that out of 100 people treated with the drugs, one person will have one less heart attack. This doesn’t sound so impressive, so statin supporters use a different statistic called relative risk.

Just by making this statistical sleight of hand, statins suddenly become beneficial for 30 to 50 percent of the population. As STATS at George Mason University explained, “An important feature of relative risk is that it tells you nothing about the actual risk.”³

2. Statins Reduce CoQ10

Statins deplete your body of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), which accounts for many of their devastating results. Although it was proposed to add a black box warning to statins stating this, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided against it in 2014.

CoQ10 is used for energy production by every cell in your body, and is therefore vital for good health, high energy levels, longevity, and general quality of life. CoQ10’s reduced form, ubiquinol, is a critical component of cellular respiration and production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

ATP is a coenzyme used as an energy carrier in every cell of your body. When you consider that your heart is the most energy-demanding organ in your body, you can surmise how potentially devastating it can be to deplete your body’s main source of cellular energy.

So while one of statins’ claims to fame is warding off heart disease, you’re actually increasing your risk when you deplete your body of CoQ10. The depletion of CoQ10 caused by the drug is why statins can increase your risk of acute heart failure.

So if you’re taking a statin drug, you MUST take Coenzyme Q10 as a supplement. If you’re over 40, I would strongly recommend taking ubiquinol instead of CoQ10, as it’s far more effectively absorbed by your body.

In every study conducted so far, ubiquinol has been shown to be far more bioavailable than the non-reduced form (CoQ10). Dr. Steven Sinatra,cardiologist and founder of the New England Heart Center, recommends taking at least 100 milligrams (mg), but preferably 200 mg of high-quality CoQ10 or ubiquinol daily.

One study in the European Journal of Pharmacology showed that ubiquinol effectively rescued cells from the damage caused by the statin drug simvastatin, thereby protecting muscle cells from myopathies.⁴

The other part most people don’t realize is that CoQ10 and ubiquinol are lipid-soluble materials biosynthesized in your blood. The carrier is the blood lipid cholesterol.

The ubiquinol actually keeps your LDL (often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol) reduced, as it’s an exceptionally potent antioxidant.

Reduced LDL cholesterol isn’t bad cholesterol at all. Only the oxidized version will cause a problem. So by reducing CoQ10 production in your body, you’re also removing the mechanism that keeps your LDL cholesterol from doing harm in your body.