Statins Used to Lower Cholesterol Linked to Doubled Risk of Developing Dementia

I play chess online every day. When I started on statins I lost 200 rating points within a couple of days. To put this in context 200 points would be a decent improvement over a year of play. I had constant brain fog which showed up at work. I was still able to do my job but it was noticeably harder to achieve the same results. I compensated by working an extra hour or two each day. After 6 months I decided it just wasn’t worth it (there was a multitude of other side effects as well) so I stopped taking them. Sure enough my chess rating immediately jumped back up.

I recently quit taking statins. My decision was motivated by reading two books:

"Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes

https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259/

and

"The Big Fat Surprise" by Nina Teicholz

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Surprise-Butter-Healthy/dp/14...

Finding that statins would lengthen my lifespan by at most ~30 days or less really chapped my ass (i.e.,irritated me), given that so much time and effort went into prescribing/ordering/buying/taking/monitoring statins on a regular schedule, along with their attendant blood tests (Total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides et al) and time spent listening to my fear-mongering physician:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=how+long+will+statins+lengthen...

When I faced my doctor down about this he fell back to saying that "you increase your probability of a heart attack by 17%". He neglected to say how significant it was that, in the last year alone, I had lost 15 pounds, increased my exercise level, now slept better and had improved my diet significantly. He went through the motions but I stood firm. In desperation he threw out "But high blood pressure is strongly correlated with increasing age and you can't turn the clock back!" I countered that my blood pressure is better than it's ever been and that I intend to reduce it further. Then I told him that the cholesterol hypothesis is dead [ed. the cholesterol hypothesis is the idea that cardiovascular disease is caused by high levels of cholesterol in the blood stream]:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=is+the+cholesterol+hypothesis+...

With that, he seemed dumbfounded and finally stopped selling me statins.

We've fallen back to a previous era where physicians in the USA are useless except for trauma intervention and as gatekeepers for antibiotics (and other newer drugs). If the USA would allow pharmacists to prescribe (as is done in Europe) we could save trillions of dollars. But physicians' prestige and power would be reduced to a shadow of what they are today. Time to put them back in their proper place.

Covid-19's revelations of the flawed advice of "experts" has been enlightening. Every expert source has failed in big ways: epidemiology is a laughing stock, the FDA, WHO and CDC have dropped the ball repeatedly, given flawed advice, reversed guidelines and in general, established a baseline of SNAFU FUBAR:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=SNAFU+FUBAR

But my physician is no better: he's been selling me bullshit for decades.

And now this article. Grrr! Good thing my blood pressure is under control!