Jiggling Numbers To Create New Patients
Millions of new patients are created by jiggling the little numbers that decide whether you have high blood pressure and now NEED medication, or perhaps a shift in the “high” cholesterol limits so now you NEED a statin. Nothing changed in your body, but the white coat societies are quite adept at creating new thresholds at which people should be put on drugs.
Between 1994 and 2018, the numbers were jiggled for twelve of the most common adult conditions. Cholesterol is classic. Early “normal” total cholesterol was pegged around 240 mg/dL based on population averages in the 1950s and 1960s. Then came the NIH Consensus Conference of 1984 pushing the message that lowering cholesterol reduces heart disease risk for everyone, not just high-risk men. The “desirable” total cholesterol was set at <200 mg/dL. Overnight, tens of millions of previously “normal” people became candidates for intervention, usually a statin drug. And meanwhile, the LDL target number for the general population started descending from 160 to 130 to 100, and eventually in 2004 to <70 mg/dL for “very high risk” patients.
This is a business model, not an objective public health recommendation – the thresholds are more economic than biological. The “risk calculator” approach means a healthy 50-year-old with no symptoms can be labeled “at risk” and medicated for life. The panelists writing these guidelines have repeatedly been shown to have extensive financial relationships with statin manufacturers.
And it is a very effective sales plan. Statin scripts went from a few million in the U.S. in the late 1980s to roughly 200 million annually by the 2010s – a more than 30-fold increase in a few decades. Lipitor became the best-selling drug in history at its peak. Today: roughly 1 in 4 American adults over 40 takes a statin.
The statin story is the template: (1) Broaden the definition (2) Expand the market (3) Downplay the harms (4) Medicalize the healthy. We are conditioned to ask our cardiologist, “what’s my number?” It would be better if we researched “who decided this number, and what do they gain from it?”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen patients on multiple drugs and the overall effect is harmful. I’ve seen people whose cholesterol levels have been forced so low, they are riddled with weak or damaged muscles. Plus brain fog, memory loss, and confusion. Yet their cardiologist is telling them their numbers look great.
The “lower is better” mantra was built on middle-aged men, sold to everyone, and never properly validated in the very old.
In the elderly, the correlation between high cholesterol and cardiac events in fact frequently flips – higher total cholesterol is associated with lower all-cause mortality in many studies. The Framingham offspring data and multiple European cohorts showed the same pattern: above roughly age 70–75, higher cholesterol tracked with longevity, not death. Why? For starters, because cholesterol is not a toxin; it’s a rock star! Every cell in your body needs waxy cholesterol for membrane integrity. Without it, cells become fragile. The brain contains roughly 25% of the body’s cholesterol. It’s essential for myelin (nerve insulation) and synaptic function; thus, low cholesterol has been linked to cognitive decline and depression. Cholesterol is also needed for fat digestion and absorption of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K).
Our society accepts this perverse medicalization of humanity by moving the numerical goalposts. I recently ran across a well-researched article where the author audited the work of committees that jiggled the numbers for 12 different conditions. You can read it here:
Or you can watch a video that also looks at this issue. This one is by Alan Cassels, drug policy researcher and author who has written extensively about disease mongering:
If you want me to take an unfiltered look at chronic conditions you or a loved one have, give me a call at 602-565-9273 to get started.
Dr. Linda Wright
October 5, 2026
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