The Reading Warehouse

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, and for decades conventional health authorities have pushed that the culprits are fat and cholesterol clogging up coronary arteries. Consequently, lowering cholesterol has become a hugely lucrative business, and cholesterol-lowering Statin drugs are now the most prescribed medication in the world, with clinical data showing one billion people eligible for prescription. However, these cholesterol guidelines have been heavily criticized, and increasingly, doctors and researchers have been questioning the role cholesterol plays in heart disease. We now know that people with heart disease often do not, in fact, have high cholesterol, and even the strongest supporters of the cholesterol hypothesis now admit that no ideal level of cholesterol can be identified.

Large-scale studies have proven that statins are not generating the benefits that were predicted, and new research shows that high cholesterol may actually prevent heart disease. Worse still, millions of people in the United States and worldwide are taking statins preventatively, at great cost to their health. A complete reevaluation of the real causes of heart disease is long overdue, not to mention an inquiry into why the pharmaceutical industry continues to overprescribe statins (and market them aggressively to consumers) despite this evidence.

Statin Nation offers a new understanding of heart disease, and Justin Smith forges an innovative path away from the outdated cholesterol myth with a viable alternative model to address the real causes of heart disease. Statin Nation provides detailed examinations of nutritional alternatives that are up to six times more effective than statins, and other interventions that have been shown to be up to eleven times more effective than statins. But all of these methods are currently ignored by health authorities. Smith provides a heart disease prevention plan that anyone can use, providing hope for the future of heart-disease treatment with a purpose.

Justin Smith is the producer, director, and writer of the documentaries Statin Nation I and II. He was formerly a personal trainer, sports massage therapist, and nutrition coach. The documentaries arose from a general-nutrition book planned by Justin. He originally hoped to only spend one chapter on cholesterol but rerouted the entire project once the overwhelming evidence disillusioned his notions of heart disease. He is based in the U.K.