So you’ve followed your mainstream doctor’s advice and brought your LDL cholesterol levels crashing down to meet the latest guidelines, probably with the help of drugs such as statins.

And now, instead of good health, you’re sicker than ever. You might even find yourself locked in a life-or-death battle with a disease such as cancer.

What went wrong?

It’s not bad luck. If it’s not a side effect of those cholesterol meds, it’s the low cholesterol itself — because low levels of LDL can be every bit as dangerous as too-high levels, and a new study confirms just one of the risks.

Researchers went into the medical histories of 201 cancer patients and 402 patients without the disease, digging through nearly 20 years of LDL data on each.

And, wouldn’t you know it, they found that the cancer patients all had consistently lower levels of cholesterol in the years and even decades before they were diagnosed with the disease.

The study isn’t proof that low LDL causes cancer, but I’ve seen similar research in the past — and I think the link is pretty real. And it’s not the only risk of bringing your levels down too far.

Your body actually needs a certain amount of cholesterol. Your heart and brain both need it… and it’s needed to manufacture key hormones. That’s why low levels have been linked to depression, anxiety, memory problems and more.

And besides, the actual level is only part of the picture here.

What many doctors don’t realize is that cholesterol is about more than just hitting a certain number on a chart. The oxidation of that cholesterol plays a much bigger role in arterial health, and I predict that in a few years you’ll be hearing a lot more about it — probably once they have a drug to sell for it.

But you don’t need to wait for that med or take any other drug — because there are safe and natural ways to control your cholesterol and its oxidation. I’ll have much more on this in the June issue of my printed newsletter, Health Revelations. If you subscribe now, I’ll make sure you’re one of the first to get it.

I’ve got some exciting news this morning. As you’ve probably noticed, there’s a new name at the top of this email. Dr. Mark Stengler is one of the nation’s leading holistic doctors and the author of 17 books on natural healing, including three best-sellers.

More importantly, he’s also been my go-to guy whenever I have tough questions.

And just last week — as he was explaining why the next wave of cholesterol meds will be even worse than the statins I’ve been warning you about — it hit me.

“YOU should be writing House Calls!” I said.

“I’d love to,” he answered. “What’s the catch?”

“Well,” I said. “It’s a lot of hard work. There are a lot of readers who count on it. And the newsletter is completely free.”

He looked me in the eye and repeated, “What’s the catch?”

That’s when I knew I found the right man for the job. So it’s my honor to hand the keyboard over to him.

Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Stengler, and I believe that what makes my practice unique is the fact that I don’t think in terms of “alternative” and “mainstream.”

I’m not interested in playing semantics or choosing sides. As you’ll see in House Calls, I’m only interested in the safest and most effective treatments for my patients — and one of the areas where I combine the best elements of mainstream research with safe and natural alternative medicine is cholesterol control.

It’s absolutely clear to me that LDL levels are an important marker of cardiovascular health, and you do need to keep them under control — but you don’t need statins or any other drugs to get there.

And you certainly won’t need the next generation of cholesterol meds making their way to the market right now. The experimental meds, which are injected as infrequently as once a month, can slash LDL levels by almost two-thirds.

They’re called PCSK9 inhibitors because they inhibit the protein (PCSK9) that prevents the liver from pulling cholesterol out of the blood. Once that protein is blocked, the liver starts gobbling up all that LDL — to the point where even patients who already take statins have seen reductions of 60 percent or more.

That might sound great… but there’s just one little problem here: Who on Earth needs to lower cholesterol by 60 percent anyway?

Answer: Practically nobody.

Mainstream targets for cholesterol have been set way too low. So low, in fact, that they’re almost impossible to reach without meds. And sadly, I think that’s the real goal here — to sell more meds.

It’s certainly not for better health, because the research clearly shows that the current targets actually come with more risks than benefits.

Since this is my first House Calls, I want to keep talking about cholesterol — including some of those risks you’ll face by bringing your levels down to meet guidelines.

Not long ago, those of us who pointed out that cholesterol meds can actually cause diabetes and other serious health problems were dismissed as alarmists.

Statins, we were told, are so safe they should be given to practically everyone – with some “experts” even pushing to give them out with every Big Mac. (That might sound like something I made up for an easy laugh – but believe it or not, it’s actually true.)

Well, maybe now the push to give everyone statins will start to slow a bit: The FDA has finally admitted that all those side effects the drug industry and its paid–for experts once brushed off are actually very real.

And now, they want the labels of these meds changed to reflect the increased risk of diabetes, confusion, memory loss, and serious muscle pain.

The feds say those side effects can hit anyone at anytime. They can strike after a single day on these meds…or they can come on after years of taking them without incident.

And they can happen to everyone across all age groups.

So who’s the alarmist now?

Of course, I can’t help but find it a little suspicious that this warning comes only after every Big Pharma statin except for one – Crestor – lost its patent protection, with Lipitor going generic just a few months ago.

It’s almost as if the feds were giving their drug company friends a chance to maximize profits before issuing the same warning those of us in natural health delivered years ago.

But even worse than the risks and the delayed warning is the fact that no one ever needed these meds in the first place.

In many cases, people taking statins don’t even have a cholesterol problem since mainstream LDL targets are set unrealistically low. And even when cholesterol does shoot up to high levels, taking a drug to “cure” it is akin to Homer Simpson putting a piece of tape over the “check engine” light on his car.

Super high cholesterol is a warning that something’s wrong – and lowering it without fixing the underlying issue won’t make you healthier any more than that piece of tape will fix Homer’s engine.

If your own levels start climbing too high for comfort, work on lifestyle changes first. Cutting out sugars and sticking to fresh foods will almost always bring cholesterol to where it needs to be.

If they’re still high, don’t visit a statin-slinging mainstream doc. Visit a naturopathic physician who can find and fix the real cause without meds.

And for one easy way to lower your cholesterol naturally, keep reading.

It’s the cure-all that doesn’t really “cure” a thing — but that hasn’t stopped the mainstream from throwing cholesterol-lowering statin drugs at absolutely everything anyway.

The latest: A new push to give these meds not to people who suffer from high cholesterol (who don’t need the drugs, either), but to people suffering from the flu.

No, it’s not April 1st and I didn’t just make that up: Researchers now claim that statins can not only beat the flu, but actually stop people from dying of the illness.

In this case, an observational study of flu patients who were hospitalized for the condition found that people on statins were 41 percent less likely to die than people not on the meds.

Just one problem — one huge problem: This wasn’t a clinical trial. No one was randomly assigned to statins or a placebo. In fact, there were no placebos at all. It was simply a hindsight look at flu patients and their outcomes as well as whatever meds they happened to be taking at the time.

The researchers claim they waved their magic statistical wand over the study and adjusted for everything from age and race to chronic conditions and diseases to get a picture of the patients’ overall health, and still found a benefit for statins.

But since it wasn’t a real clinical trial, it’s impossible to adjust for everything — and it’s quite likely that patients who were already on statins were patients who were already under the active care of a doctor.

These people are more likely to take the actions they think will help keep them healthy (even if it’s the wrong action, like swallowing statins every day) and more likely to seek help quicker when they do get sick.

The patients not on statins, on the other hand, might include people who tend to avoid doctors and medical care — at least, in this case, until they were so sick with the flu they were hospitalized for it.

Here’s the reality of the situation: Statins are wrong for cholesterol… and they’re certainly wrong for all the other conditions they’re being touted for (I’ve seen claims they can help with everything from dementia to cancer, no kidding).

And they’re especially wrong for flu: Some of these meds even have respiratory infections and influenza listed as possible side effects!

You couldn’t come up with a worse flu treatment if you tried.