Chalk up one anecdotal success story.

I am a physician. I was on lipitor for about 4 years until I found out it was giving me rhabdomyolysis (muscle breakdown). The manufacturers of statins state that this is a rare side effect and I even counselled my patients that this is about a 1/200 incidence. Well after delving into the research a bit more it turns out that pretty much everyone taking statins has some degree of muscle pathology on biopsy with the majority being subclinical...but not insignificant. Being a work-out nut this could not be tolerated.
I stopped the Lipitor and went on a low fat diet (20% fat) with Mega Red. To be fair I am also taking a proprietary 3-6-9 omega oil blend as well (Udo's Blend) although it is not clear that this affects cholesterol levels and makes no claims to. I have been on the Mega Red for about 2 months and the low fat diet for about 2 weeks and got my levels rechecked. Total cholesterol went from 240 (pre-lipitor) to 179. LDL from 160 to 119 and HDL from 35 to 40. All as good or better than I got on 20 mg of Lipitor.
Now I no longer have to worry about muscle breakdown and my LFT's are normal for the first time in 4 years. As an added bonus I can get this locally for about $27 for a 4-month supply (with coupon and buy-1-get-1 deals) which is about 1/4 the cost of Lipitor. Well this is one anecdotal success story so take it for what it's worth. I have put a lot of energy into exercizing and going low fat as well so under those circumstances I can say that it seems to work for me andI am very happy with the results.More detail ...
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