Latest news with #statins
Health Line
6 days ago
- Health
- Health Line
Can High Cholesterol Levels Make You Gain Weight?
High cholesterol and weight gain are often linked, but one does not directly cause the other. If you have high cholesterol, it doesn't mean your body will automatically start storing more fat. However, the factors that contribute to high cholesterol — such as an unbalanced diet, lack of exercise, and certain metabolic conditions — can also lead to weight gain. Cholesterol is a fatty substance your body needs in small amounts to build cells and produce hormones. Your liver produces most of your cholesterol, but you also get it from the food you eat. If your diet is high in saturated fats, trans fats, and refined carbohydrates, your cholesterol levels may rise. You're also more likely to consume excess calories, which can lead to weight gain over time. Some medical conditions that cause high cholesterol, such as hypothyroidism and metabolic syndrome, are also associated with weight gain. Certain medications used to manage cholesterol, including beta-blockers and some statins, may contribute to weight changes in some individuals. Both weight gain and high cholesterol increase your risk for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. They often stem from the same root causes, so addressing one can benefit the other. Take action
Yahoo
27-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The six natural alternatives to statins to lower your cholesterol
For those of us in middle age and beyond, conversations about cholesterol are hard to avoid – and with good reason. In England, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, high cholesterol leads to more than 7 per cent of all deaths and affects six in 10 adults, a number that rises for those in middle age: the most recent NHS Health Survey for England found that in the 45-64 age group, 77 per cent of women and 67 per cent of men had raised cholesterol. Surprisingly, these figures drop in the over-64 age group. Why? Because many of this older cohort are on statins. Statins are currently prescribed to around eight million people in the UK, and taking this daily tablet is a proven way to lower cholesterol levels and reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke. 'We are the first generation of people who have the opportunity to reduce our cardiovascular risk – still the number-one killer – because we have effective treatments in the form of statins,' says Robin Choudhury, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Oxford, a consultant cardiologist at John Radcliffe Hospital and the author of The Beating Heart: The Art and Science of Our Most Vital Organ. The turn against statins However, for some people with a lower cardiovascular risk, it may be possible to avoid statins by adopting lifestyle changes and/or seeking out other natural options. This is welcome news for many, because statins are often viewed with mistrust. Some critics argue that perhaps these pills are being doled out too liberally and that lots of people shouldn't be on them at all. Others think that statins may even be bad for us. In his 2007 book The Great Cholesterol Con, Scottish GP Malcolm Kendrick argues that high cholesterol levels don't cause heart disease, that statins have many more side effects than has been admitted and that their advocates should be asking more questions. This is something Prof Choudhury finds mystifying. 'I really don't know why people are reluctant to take them,' he says. 'There is one serious side effect associated with statins, called rhabdomyolysis, which is a severe muscle inflammation. But it's extremely rare. It affects one to two patients per 10,000 treated.' 'A lot of people just don't want to take a tablet every day,' suggests Dr Oliver Guttmann, a consultant cardiologist at the Wellington Hospital, part of HCA Healthcare UK. 'People also want to try and do it in what they call the 'natural' way.' The other natural options So, are there other effective natural options to statins? The answer is yes – but only up to a point. 'The bottom line,' says Dr Guttmann, 'is that with all the natural alternatives, there's some effectiveness, but they're not magic bullets.' He accepts, however, that other natural options can play 'a supporting role, especially for those people who are generally healthy and just want to try complementary treatments to decrease mild cholesterol elevation'. If you have been offered statins and decide not to take them, it's crucial to discuss the risks with your GP or cardiologist. Prof Choudhury emphasises that if you've already had a heart attack, angina or stroke, or if your percentage risk of a future event is high, taking statins is usually a sensible route that is grounded in evidence. 'For those who have heart disease, very few people have a good reason not to be on statins. For those who've never had an event, it's important to take an holistic view of risk [incorporating blood pressure, diabetes and family history] but for many individuals, alternatives to statins are perfectly reasonable.' Here are six other cholesterol-lowering options to consider: Plant sterols and stanols Plant sterols and stanols, also known as phytosterols, are naturally occurring compounds that have a similar structure to cholesterol. Prof Choudhury explains: 'They help lower LDL cholesterol levels by reducing cholesterol absorption in the gut because they compete for the same absorption sites.' Found in foods such as vegetable oils, nuts, seeds and whole grains, phytosterols have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol by eight to 10 per cent when eaten regularly as part of a healthy diet. They also work well in combination with statins. However, according to the British Dietetic Association, you need to consume reasonably large quantities – around 2g – each day, with meals, for them to be effective. Most people achieve this by having a plant sterol- or stanol-fortified mini yogurt drink every day or by eating two to three portions of foods with at least 0.8g of added plant sterol/stanol, such as 10g of fortified spread (eg margarines) or one 250ml glass of fortified milk. Oats and barley Oats and barley contain beta-glucans, a soluble fibre, which can be consumed in food or as supplements to regulate blood sugar and lower cholesterol. Cholesterol can go into the blood or the gut, Prof Choudhury explains. 'If you can take that cholesterol out of the gut and stop it being reabsorbed, that has a beneficial net effect on blood cholesterol levels. Beta-glucans bind to the soluble cholesterol that's in the gut and it then exits the bowel.' Some studies suggest that if a healthy adult consumes around 3g of beta-glucan daily – a bowl of porridge – they can decrease their LDL levels by five to 10 per cent over three months. Omega-3s Omega-3 fatty acids do not lower LDL cholesterol, but they have been shown to reduce triglycerides – a different type of fat found in the blood that are deemed to be harmful. Taken in supplement form, omega-3 can lower triglycerides by around 20-30 per cent. 'I tell my patients to take omega-3s all the time,' says Dr Guttmann. 'You find them in oily fish, like salmon and mackerel, though most people take them in supplement form. They work really well taken together with statins to lower your risk of heart disease. They've also been shown to support your brain health, cognitive function and mood.' Red yeast rice Commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine, red yeast rice is sometimes described as a natural statin. 'It blocks cholesterol production in the liver in a similar way to statins,' Dr Guttmann explains. 'The problem is, it's very difficult to get the exact amount you need because the dosages and qualities can vary from one supplement to another. People can also sometimes consume red yeast rice in very high doses, which may cause liver problems.' Prof Choudhury is also concerned by the unregulated nature of red yeast rice capsules, which have been linked to safety issues. 'Statins originated from yeast,' he says, 'and there's a component of red yeast rice [a compound called monacolin K] which has a statin-like action that lowers LDL cholesterol. But it's not a regulated product, so you don't know what you're getting when you take it.' Psyllium husk Psyllium husk is a soluble fibre that helps to lower LDL cholesterol levels. When consumed, it forms a gel-like substance in the digestive tract that traps bile acids and prevents their absorption, causing them to be excreted through the stool. The liver responds by pulling in cholesterol from the blood to produce more bile acids, reducing the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood. 'Psyllium husk is basically a digestive aid,' says Dr Guttmann. 'It's used as a laxative because it helps regulate your bowel movement, and in the process, it can lower cholesterol and decrease reabsorption. If you take it regularly, it probably reduces your LDL level by about five per cent. So it's great if you just want to be living a healthier lifestyle but inadequate as a medical intervention.' Garlic Some research suggests that allicin, a chemical found in garlic, can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol. One clove (3-6g) of garlic a day may help decrease your LDL by up to 10 per cent, though the evidence is not yet conclusive. 'The problem is that if you just eat fresh garlic, you need to consume a very high amount,' says Dr Guttmann. 'And that's difficult for most people to achieve. So most people take garlic supplements in quite a high dose. I advise people to try this for a while and then re-monitor their LDL to see how they react to it. But it's certainly not a replacement for statins.' And one to be sceptical about… Apple cider vinegar 'The one product often mentioned as an alternative to statins that doesn't really have any significant evidence to back it up is apple cider vinegar,' says Dr Guttmann. 'While it might help to decrease your sugar levels, it does not appear to affect your LDL significantly.' Prof Choudhury concurs: 'I'm not aware of any convincing evidence to suggest that this is effective.' Lifestyle changes to lower your cholesterol 'Our cholesterol level is, to a large extent, genetic,' says Prof Choudhury. 'With lifestyle modifications, you can make some impact on it, though usually not more than 10-15 per cent. For people who don't have very high cholesterol, but have other risk factors, it's a sensible thing to do.' There are five main ways to reduce your cholesterol level without taking statins: Eat a healthy, balanced diet that's high in fibre Exercise regularly Maintain a healthy weight Limit the amount of alcohol you drink Stop smoking For Dr Guttmann, increasing our consumption of dietary fibre is perhaps the quickest and easiest lifestyle change to make. 'Eating a high-fibre diet not only improves your gut health, it also decreases your cholesterol absorption. It binds to the cholesterol in your gut and prevents it being absorbed by the body, which lowers your levels of harmful LDL cholesterol.' He adds: 'My patients often ask me, 'If I do all of these things, surely it's the same as taking a statin?' But the truth is, because they're all working in a similar way, the benefits are not cumulative.' He does concede, however, that it very much depends on the individual. 'I've had some patients surprise me,' he nods. 'By changing their diet and lifestyle and by incorporating some of the interventions in the list above, people can achieve dramatic improvements. But, overall, statins are still the gold standard.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
27-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
The six natural alternatives to statins to lower your cholesterol
For those of us in middle age and beyond, conversations about cholesterol are hard to avoid – and with good reason. In England, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, high cholesterol leads to more than 7 per cent of all deaths and affects six in 10 adults, a number that rises for those in middle age: the most recent NHS Health Survey for England found that in the 45-64 age group, 77 per cent of women and 67 per cent of men had raised cholesterol. Surprisingly, these figures drop in the over-64 age group. Why? Because many of this older cohort are on statins. Statins are currently prescribed to around eight million people in the UK, and taking this daily tablet is a proven way to lower cholesterol levels and reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke. 'We are the first generation of people who have the opportunity to reduce our cardiovascular risk – still the number-one killer – because we have effective treatments in the form of statins,' says Robin Choudhury, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Oxford, a consultant cardiologist at John Radcliffe Hospital and the author of The Beating Heart: The Art and Science of Our Most Vital Organ. The turn against statins However, for some people with a lower cardiovascular risk, it may be possible to avoid statins by adopting lifestyle changes and/or seeking out other natural options. This is welcome news for many, because statins are often viewed with mistrust. Some critics argue that perhaps these pills are being doled out too liberally and that lots of people shouldn't be on them at all. Others think that statins may even be bad for us. In his 2007 book The Great Cholesterol Con, Scottish GP Malcolm Kendrick argues that high cholesterol levels don't cause heart disease, that statins have many more side effects than has been admitted and that their advocates should be asking more questions. This is something Prof Choudhury finds mystifying. 'I really don't know why people are reluctant to take them,' he says. 'There is one serious side effect associated with statins, called rhabdomyolysis, which is a severe muscle inflammation. But it's extremely rare. It affects one to two patients per 10,000 treated.' 'A lot of people just don't want to take a tablet every day,' suggests Dr Oliver Guttmann, a consultant cardiologist at the Wellington Hospital, part of HCA Healthcare UK. 'People also want to try and do it in what they call the 'natural' way.' The other natural options So, are there other effective natural options to statins? The answer is yes – but only up to a point. 'The bottom line,' says Dr Guttmann, 'is that with all the natural alternatives, there's some effectiveness, but they're not magic bullets.' He accepts, however, that other natural options can play 'a supporting role, especially for those people who are generally healthy and just want to try complementary treatments to decrease mild cholesterol elevation'. If you have been offered statins and decide not to take them, it's crucial to discuss the risks with your GP or cardiologist. Prof Choudhury emphasises that if you've already had a heart attack, angina or stroke, or if your percentage risk of a future event is high, taking statins is usually a sensible route that is grounded in evidence. 'For those who have heart disease, very few people have a good reason not to be on statins. For those who've never had an event, it's important to take an holistic view of risk [incorporating blood pressure, diabetes and family history] but for many individuals, alternatives to statins are perfectly reasonable.' Here are six other cholesterol-lowering options to consider: Plant sterols and stanols Plant sterols and stanols, also known as phytosterols, are naturally occurring compounds that have a similar structure to cholesterol. Prof Choudhury explains: 'They help lower LDL cholesterol levels by reducing cholesterol absorption in the gut because they compete for the same absorption sites.' Found in foods such as vegetable oils, nuts, seeds and whole grains, phytosterols have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol by eight to 10 per cent when eaten regularly as part of a healthy diet. They also work well in combination with statins. However, according to the British Dietetic Association, you need to consume reasonably large quantities – around 2g – each day, with meals, for them to be effective. Most people achieve this by having a plant sterol- or stanol-fortified mini yogurt drink every day or by eating two to three portions of foods with at least 0.8g of added plant sterol/stanol, such as 10g of fortified spread (eg margarines) or one 250ml glass of fortified milk. Oats and barley Oats and barley contain beta-glucans, a soluble fibre, which can be consumed in food or as supplements to regulate blood sugar and lower cholesterol. Cholesterol can go into the blood or the gut, Prof Choudhury explains. 'If you can take that cholesterol out of the gut and stop it being reabsorbed, that has a beneficial net effect on blood cholesterol levels. Beta-glucans bind to the soluble cholesterol that's in the gut and it then exits the bowel.' Some studies suggest that if a healthy adult consumes around 3g of beta-glucan daily – a bowl of porridge – they can decrease their LDL levels by five to 10 per cent over three months. Omega-3s Omega-3 fatty acids do not lower LDL cholesterol, but they have been shown to reduce triglycerides – a different type of fat found in the blood that are deemed to be harmful. Taken in supplement form, omega-3 can lower triglycerides by around 20-30 per cent. 'I tell my patients to take omega-3s all the time,' says Dr Guttmann. 'You find them in oily fish, like salmon and mackerel, though most people take them in supplement form. They work really well taken together with statins to lower your risk of heart disease. They've also been shown to support your brain health, cognitive function and mood.' Red yeast rice Commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine, red yeast rice is sometimes described as a natural statin. 'It blocks cholesterol production in the liver in a similar way to statins,' Dr Guttmann explains. 'The problem is, it's very difficult to get the exact amount you need because the dosages and qualities can vary from one supplement to another. People can also sometimes consume red yeast rice in very high doses, which may cause liver problems.' Prof Choudhury is also concerned by the unregulated nature of red yeast rice capsules, which have been linked to safety issues. 'Statins originated from yeast,' he says, 'and there's a component of red yeast rice [a compound called monacolin K] which has a statin-like action that lowers LDL cholesterol. But it's not a regulated product, so you don't know what you're getting when you take it.' Psyllium husk Psyllium husk is a soluble fibre that helps to lower LDL cholesterol levels. When consumed, it forms a gel-like substance in the digestive tract that traps bile acids and prevents their absorption, causing them to be excreted through the stool. The liver responds by pulling in cholesterol from the blood to produce more bile acids, reducing the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood. 'Psyllium husk is basically a digestive aid,' says Dr Guttmann. 'It's used as a laxative because it helps regulate your bowel movement, and in the process, it can lower cholesterol and decrease reabsorption. If you take it regularly, it probably reduces your LDL level by about five per cent. So it's great if you just want to be living a healthier lifestyle but inadequate as a medical intervention.' Garlic Some research suggests that allicin, a chemical found in garlic, can lower your blood pressure and cholesterol. One clove (3-6g) of garlic a day may help decrease your LDL by up to 10 per cent, though the evidence is not yet conclusive. 'The problem is that if you just eat fresh garlic, you need to consume a very high amount,' says Dr Guttmann. 'And that's difficult for most people to achieve. So most people take garlic supplements in quite a high dose. I advise people to try this for a while and then re-monitor their LDL to see how they react to it. But it's certainly not a replacement for statins.' And one to be sceptical about… Apple cider vinegar 'The one product often mentioned as an alternative to statins that doesn't really have any significant evidence to back it up is apple cider vinegar,' says Dr Guttmann. 'While it might help to decrease your sugar levels, it does not appear to affect your LDL significantly.' Prof Choudhury concurs: 'I'm not aware of any convincing evidence to suggest that this is effective.' Lifestyle changes to lower your cholesterol 'Our cholesterol level is, to a large extent, genetic,' says Prof Choudhury. 'With lifestyle modifications, you can make some impact on it, though usually not more than 10-15 per cent. For people who don't have very high cholesterol, but have other risk factors, it's a sensible thing to do.' There are five main ways to reduce your cholesterol level without taking statins: Eat a healthy, balanced diet that's high in fibre Exercise regularly Maintain a healthy weight Limit the amount of alcohol you drink Stop smoking For Dr Guttmann, increasing our consumption of dietary fibre is perhaps the quickest and easiest lifestyle change to make. 'Eating a high-fibre diet not only improves your gut health, it also decreases your cholesterol absorption. It binds to the cholesterol in your gut and prevents it being absorbed by the body, which lowers your levels of harmful LDL cholesterol.' He adds: 'My patients often ask me, 'If I do all of these things, surely it's the same as taking a statin?' But the truth is, because they're all working in a similar way, the benefits are not cumulative.' He does concede, however, that it very much depends on the individual. 'I've had some patients surprise me,' he nods. 'By changing their diet and lifestyle and by incorporating some of the interventions in the list above, people can achieve dramatic improvements. But, overall, statins are still the gold standard.'
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Aseem Malhotra: ‘The harm caused by the Covid vaccine has been catastrophic'
Dr Aseem Malhotra is no stranger to controversy. A decade ago, as an NHS clinician, he founded Action on Sugar, a campaign group credited with forcing Public Health England to push for lower levels of sugar in popular products. At the time, he was branded an agent of the 'nanny state', removing packaging that appealed to children and forcing sugar warnings on the public. The cardiologist, 47, has also been a vocal critic of the widespread use of statins – one of the most prescribed medications on the NHS – as a preventative drug to reduce the risk of heart disease. But it is since the outbreak of Covid-19 that he has risen to serious public prominence, first as a proponent of the UK government's vaccine rollout, then as one of its fiercest critics. He has repeatedly claimed that the mRNA vaccines developed during the pandemic did 'more harm than good' and called for them to be suspended. Now he has a new role which gives him a huge influence over global health policy. A long-time ally of Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump's health secretary, Malhotra was recently appointed chief medical adviser to the 'MAHA Institute' (dedicated to RFK Jr's 'Make America Healthy Again' mantra), making him perhaps the most powerful Briton in Trump's administration. 'I'm in a unique position because of my work in the UK, because I span big pharma, big food policy, change, evidence-based medicine. And I'm a practising clinician,' he says. Although Trump's 'America First' hiring policy means that Malhotra cannot take an official post in the US government, the role offers almost unrivalled access to the US health secretary. We meet in the basement of a smart building in Chelsea, where Malhotra works as a private consultant at the HUM2N longevity clinic, offering 'biohacking' services alongside more traditional medical advice. The clinic has a sci-fi feel to it, with its array of futuristic-looking machines, including hyperbaric oxygen and cryo chambers, designed to offer members paying £300 a month drug-free 'hacks' for their health. Wearing a loose, pale blue linen shirt, shorts and trainers, Malhotra has some patches of psoriasis on his skin which he suspects are from 'vaccine injury' and tells me that he has consulted a leading doctor in the US about them. Malhotra first came to the attention of RFK Jr in September 2022, after he published a paper on 'misinformation about the Covid mRNA vaccine' in the Journal of Insulin Resistance. It led to him being interviewed on television. 'I walked out of the GB News studio and the first person to call me was Robert Kennedy Jr,' he recalls. 'And he said, 'Dr Malhotra, it's Robert Kennedy Jr here. I want to thank you for your courage.'' RFK Jr announced he was running for president in April 2023, and built his campaign on a promise to curb ultra-processed food, scrutinise vaccines and encourage clean living, but he is a divisive figure in the world of health policy, not least for his previous support for claims that childhood vaccines can cause autism and that fluoride in the water can damage IQ. Malhotra is one of his strongest defenders, and believes he may have been the first to suggest the former Democrat ran for president – following in the footsteps of his father, Bobby Kennedy, and uncle, JFK. 'I was very impressed with him, despite media reports of him being some sort of extremist in terms of his rhetoric and his advocacy on the issue of childhood vaccines,' Malhotra says. 'He almost had that presidential demeanour, in the sense that he had a presence. He was extremely articulate. He came across to me as having very high integrity, being compassionate and being a good listener. 'I said, 'He's the right guy at the right time. We need someone like him, to restore integrity into politics.'' 'Trust in doctors is at an all-time low,' he continues. He believes that the medical industry has been hopelessly captured by big corporate pharmaceutical companies, which he claims fund biased research into the safety of their own drugs and push patients into taking them. 'Medicine has become an illusion. It's been hijacked by these powerful commercial entities because they control the information that doctors utilise to make clinical decisions.' Malhotra believes that RFK Jr is already having a serious impact on the Trump administration and pushing the president himself away from pharmaceutical corporations. 'President Trump clearly has become more and more aware that the big corporations have abused their power and are undermining democracy – big pharma in particular,' he says. On RFK Jr's more contentious views, he is willing to give the health secretary a chance to assess the evidence for his claims again. 'He may not get everything right, but he's open to changing his mind and opinion when he hears new evidence,' Malhotra says, adding that he, too, believes the widely-debunked link between vaccines and autism should be re-examined. 'If you'd asked me even three years ago, four years ago, 'Dr Malhotra, do you think there's anything between vaccines and autism?' I'd have said: 'Absolute nonsense, that's been debunked'. 'But what the Covid vaccine has exposed is that there's been a holy grail, if you like, on traditional vaccines. Now, I think we have to start from the perspective that no drug or vaccine is completely safe.' His view that every current vaccine should be completely reassessed for safety, he acknowledges, is far from mainstream in the UK. But he says it forms part of a growing chorus of medical professionals who reject the influence of big pharma in their industry. So how did an NHS cardiologist, seen by some as a misinformation merchant, become a MAHA icon? His life story gives some clues to his surprising trajectory. Born in New Delhi, he moved to the UK as a child with his doctor parents Anisha Malhotra and Kailash Chand. Dr Chand was a darling of the New Labour years and a prolific campaigner for the NHS. In 2012, he became deputy president of the British Medical Association and, the same year, received a national merit award from Labour leader Ed Miliband. A young Aseem attended Manchester Grammar School, where he batted first on the cricket team. His middle-school report card praised a 'courageous, committed and able' young man, 'with a sense of justice that does him proud'. A 1994 article he wrote for the school newspaper aged 16 warned that the British National Party was 'just the tip of the iceberg' for discrimination in the UK and that 'racism is in each and every one of us'. 'It is institutional racism which has to be opposed with all our might,' he wrote, suggesting an early interest in the failure of public bodies that would stay with him until middle age. His interest in cardiology began even earlier in life when his older brother Amit, who had Down's syndrome, died of heart failure in 1988 aged 13. 'He had a viral illness that caused him to go into crashing heart failure within five days of being well,' he recalls. Did his brother's death inspire him to work on heart conditions as an adult? 'Absolutely, yes,' he replies. The aspiring doctor then studied medicine at Edinburgh University, before working in a variety of UK hospitals and becoming a cardiology specialist registrar at the Royal Free and Harefield hospitals in London. After the outbreak of the pandemic, in February 2021 he appeared on ITV's Good Morning Britain to promote the Covid vaccine for elderly people, saying, 'We need to understand where this vaccine hesitancy is coming from,' that 'trust needs to be restored' and that the 'vaccines by far are the safest'. But a few months later, following the death of his father soon after receiving the vaccine, he had a sudden change of heart. 'When my dad died and had a cardiac arrest, someone tweeted, 'It's the vax!',' he remembers. 'I got so angry. I blocked them and thought, 'This person is crazy and they are mad'.' 'And then, when I spent nine months looking at all the data, and reaching out to other people who have more expertise in particular areas, like immunology, it became very clear that this is what happened.' As a trained cardiologist, Malhotra says he believes two 'critical narrowings' in his father's heart, discovered in the post-mortem, were caused by taking the vaccine. Although there was no concrete evidence that his father's death was caused by receiving a Covid vaccine, he believes it is the only explanation for the quick death of an otherwise healthy man. The conclusion, meanwhile, of the largest study of vaccine safety so far conducted, which included research on side effects among 99 million people and was published in the respected journal Vaccine in February 2024, found the presence of several conditions linked to the jabs but judged that they were extremely rare. 'I think it's time for a 'just say no' campaign,' says Malhotra. 'We have seen the worst failures of the system in health with the rollout of the Covid vaccine, which has been absolutely catastrophic in terms of the harm it's done.' The decision to reject the consensus view on vaccines, including from the British and American health authorities, has sometimes made his life more difficult. Two years ago, a group of doctors attempted to have his medical licence revoked, alleging that he had spread misinformation about Covid-19. The General Medical Council initially took no action, then announced in February last year that it would review that decision, after a legal challenge from one of the complainants. The review is on-going. 'I don't think these people are ill-intentioned. I just think that they are acting from a place of fear,' he says. Further controversy came after an interview about statins on the BBC in January 2023, which he used to call for the suspension of the Covid vaccine rollout while the link between the jab and excess deaths was investigated. The BBC was forced to apologise and said the claims should have been challenged. A divorcee, he separated from his wife of five years, Sukriti, in 2010 – Malhotra has no children and lives a solitary lifestyle in Hampstead, waking at 4.30am each day to meditate and read before working out, working until around 5pm, then switching off his phone two hours before going to bed at 8.30pm. 'I'm obsessed with my own health, in the sense that I want to always be the best version of myself, physically and mentally, but also so I can teach others and help others.' 'I consider myself an athlete,' he says, revealing that he has been using the cryo chamber in his office to treat a shoulder injury from the gym. He never eats sugar or starch, other than in porridge, and prefers a high-protein diet of Mediterranean and Indian food with at least 10 varieties of fruit and vegetables a day. The latest target of his campaigning is against Labour's drive to provide weight-loss jabs on the NHS, which he says will be a 'total, complete public health disaster' that he compares to telling patients: 'I'm going to give you cancer as a way for you to lose weight.' 'Inevitably, the safety and benefits are grossly exaggerated, which means there's no informed consent,' he says. 'And we are now seeing that these particular weight-loss drugs are not good for your health, because you lose equal amounts of muscle as you do body fat with the jabs.' There is some evidence that weight-loss medications can result in patients losing muscle mass, but studies have found the quantity is lower than the amount of lost fat. Malhotra says that obesity is a 'marker for other health problems' including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, and that weight-loss jabs only target the symptom, not the root cause. 'As far as I'm concerned, until we have independent evidence showing that weight-loss drugs can actually improve those outcomes, it shouldn't be given to a single human being,' he says. And Malhotra is hopeful that there may be an opportunity for him to use his solutions to the health crisis in the UK; he believes that Nigel Farage may be the answer. 'I do think Nigel is a very courageous politician,' he says. 'He's not afraid to speak his mind.' There is talk in Reform circles, given Farage's popularity with Trump's team, that Malhotra will address the party's annual conference in Birmingham this autumn. He has also been appointed as chief health adviser to Action on World Health, an anti-WHO campaign group co-founded by Farage. But for now his focus is firmly on the US. Today, he admits that initially he was 'maybe a bit sceptical' when he first heard from one of RFK Jr's aides that he was intending to suspend his presidential campaign and join Trump, who is known for his love of big corporations and – critically – McDonald's. 'Once he decided he was going to do that, then I made the decision that I was going to support Trump winning the presidential election,' he adds. 'I felt that, you know, irrespective of Trump being a divisive character, I think he is a disrupter, and it's the kind of disrupter that we need right now in politics.' However, he says it was scepticism from the American public towards the same vaccine that Trump rolled out during his first term that helped propel him back into office last November. 'My view is the primary reason that President Trump had such a clear margin of victory over Kamala Harris was because of Robert Kennedy Jr joining him,' he says. 'The main issue that most people were worried about and cared about in the US was the whole handling, and the mandating, and the lack of addressing the problem with the Covid vaccine.' That claim does not appear to be backed up by the most commonly-cited US polls, which showed that concerns about the cost of living and immigration were the greatest concerns of voters during the campaign. Malhotra also claims that 57 per cent of Americans felt that excess deaths during the pandemic were linked to the vaccine, 'because they knew of a family member or a friend that had been severely affected by it'. He cannot provide a reference to that survey, but a poll published last year found that around 28 per cent of Americans believe vaccines caused a higher death toll. Malhotra attributes that shift to the rise of alternative media, such as the shows presented by Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, on which he has often appeared. Later this month, he will travel to Washington DC for a fundraiser for RFK Jr, when he says he plans to speak to him about health policy. He will continue living in the UK, for now. But despite their working relationship, there are clear political differences between the clean-living doctor and the Trump administration's health chief. His critique of big pharma companies is shared by some in Trump world, but he also has a wider agenda to increase the role of the state in people's lives to boost wider health outcomes. At a health policy summit in Texas in May, Malhotra, who shares the same paternalistic values as his father, a lifelong liberal, argued that to solve the US's health problems the government must go far beyond what RFK Jr and his team have so far proposed on regulating food and drugs, including a planned ban on food dye and a war on seed oils. And he has claimed he is already in 'active discussions' with senior MAHA officials about how to drive a more aggressive agenda. At the summit, he spoke about his vision of how to get America healthy, promoting a radical Scandinavian-style approach to health that would include raising the minimum wage, providing more affordable housing and improving educational outcomes. 'Modern medicine actually has relatively little role to play in terms of your health,' he says, arguing that 'maybe 10 per cent of life expectancy or health is determined by what your doctor prescribes for you in the hospital or in the clinic'. Instead, he says socially determined factors – the 'conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age' – are the greatest contributors to overall health. 'If you are somebody who is in a low-pay, low-control, high-demand job, that, in a way, is effectively a death sentence in terms of the chronic stress it exerts,' he says. 'That paradigm shift needs to happen. If we don't sort out the mind in terms of everything, in terms of our culture, how we interact with each other… then we can't optimise our physical health.' If anything, he says the association between his scepticism of Covid vaccines and Right-wing politics is more about the people who accepted his views after the death of his father. 'When I started speaking out on my U-turn on the whole issue of the Covid vaccine, the people that were the most supportive of me were actually people who I wouldn't normally find myself being aligned with or having conversations with,' he says. Some of his earliest supporters included Ron Johnson, the Republican senator who used his position as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security committee to invite witnesses who were critical of the vaccines. It is clear that an uneasy coalition exists between members of the American Right and those like RFK Jr with fringe views on public health – who are unlikely to agree on many of the long-term solutions to the issues they diagnose. The next year will reveal what influence Malhotra really has, and whether this British cardiologist is the man to help turn America's health around. In the meantime, he thinks a 'shift' of public opinion is under way. 'Seeing what's happened in America, I think, will give hope to other politicians that have been a bit afraid to speak about these issues to speak up,' he says. 'We are living through a corporate tyranny. And I think once that is understood and acknowledged and collectively, we can fight it.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
13-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Aseem Malhotra: ‘Trust in doctors is at an all-time low. Medicine has been hijacked by big pharma'
Dr Aseem Malhotra is no stranger to controversy. A decade ago, as an NHS clinician, he founded Action on Sugar, a campaign group credited with forcing Public Health England to push for lower levels of sugar in popular products. At the time, he was branded an agent of the 'nanny state', removing packaging that appealed to children and forcing sugar warnings on the public. The cardiologist, 47, has also been a vocal critic of the widespread use of statins – one of the most prescribed medications on the NHS – as a preventative drug to reduce the risk of heart disease. But it is since the outbreak of Covid-19 that he has risen to serious public prominence, first as a proponent of the UK government's vaccine rollout, then as one of its fiercest critics. He has repeatedly claimed that the mRNA vaccines developed during the pandemic did 'more harm than good' and called for them to be suspended. Now he has a new role which gives him a huge influence over global health policy. A long-time ally of Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump's health secretary, Malhotra was recently appointed chief medical adviser to the 'MAHA Institute' (dedicated to RFK Jr's 'Make America Healthy Again' mantra), making him perhaps the most powerful Briton in Trump's administration. 'I'm in a unique position because of my work in the UK, because I span big pharma, big food policy, change, evidence-based medicine. And I'm a practising clinician,' he says. Although Trump's 'America First' hiring policy means that Malhotra cannot take an official post in the US government, the role offers almost unrivalled access to the US health secretary. We meet in the basement of a smart building in Chelsea, where Malhotra works as a private consultant at the HUM2N longevity clinic, offering 'biohacking' services alongside more traditional medical advice. The clinic has a sci-fi feel to it, with its array of futuristic-looking machines, including hyperbaric oxygen and cryo chambers, designed to offer members paying £300 a month drug-free 'hacks' for their health. Wearing a loose, pale blue linen shirt, shorts and trainers, Malhotra has some patches of psoriasis on his skin which he suspects are from 'vaccine injury' and tells me that he has consulted a leading doctor in the US about them. Malhotra first came to the attention of RFK Jr in September 2022, after he published a paper on 'misinformation about the Covid mRNA vaccine' in the Journal of Insulin Resistance. It led to him being interviewed on television. 'I walked out of the GB News studio and the first person to call me was Robert Kennedy Jr,' he recalls. 'And he said, 'Dr Malhotra, it's Robert Kennedy Jr here. I want to thank you for your courage.'' RFK Jr announced he was running for president in April 2023, and built his campaign on a promise to curb ultra-processed food, scrutinise vaccines and encourage clean living, but he is a divisive figure in the world of health policy, not least for his previous support for claims that childhood vaccines can cause autism and that fluoride in the water can damage IQ. Malhotra is one of his strongest defenders, and believes he may have been the first to suggest the former Democrat ran for president – following in the footsteps of his father, Bobby Kennedy, and uncle, JFK. 'I was very impressed with him, despite media reports of him being some sort of extremist in terms of his rhetoric and his advocacy on the issue of childhood vaccines,' Malhotra says. 'He almost had that presidential demeanour, in the sense that he had a presence. He was extremely articulate. He came across to me as having very high integrity, being compassionate and being a good listener. 'I said, 'He's the right guy at the right time. We need someone like him, to restore integrity into politics.'' 'Trust in doctors is at an all-time low,' he continues. He believes that the medical industry has been hopelessly captured by big corporate pharmaceutical companies, which he claims fund biased research into the safety of their own drugs and push patients into taking them. 'Medicine has become an illusion. It's been hijacked by these powerful commercial entities because they control the information that doctors utilise to make clinical decisions.' Rejecting big pharma Malhotra believes that RFK Jr is already having a serious impact on the Trump administration and pushing the president himself away from pharmaceutical corporations. ' President Trump clearly has become more and more aware that the big corporations have abused their power and are undermining democracy – big pharma in particular,' he says. On RFK Jr's more contentious views, he is willing to give the health secretary a chance to assess the evidence for his claims again. 'He may not get everything right, but he's open to changing his mind and opinion when he hears new evidence,' Malhotra says, adding that he, too, believes the widely-debunked link between vaccines and autism should be re-examined. 'If you'd asked me even three years ago, four years ago, 'Dr Malhotra, do you think there's anything between vaccines and autism?' I'd have said: 'Absolute nonsense, that's been debunked'. 'But what the Covid vaccine has exposed is that there's been a holy grail, if you like, on traditional vaccines. Now, I think we have to start from the perspective that no drug or vaccine is completely safe.' His view that every current vaccine should be completely reassessed for safety, he acknowledges, is far from mainstream in the UK. But he says it forms part of a growing chorus of medical professionals who reject the influence of big pharma in their industry. So how did an NHS cardiologist, seen by some as a misinformation merchant, become a MAHA icon? His life story gives some clues to his surprising trajectory. Born in New Delhi, he moved to the UK as a child with his doctor parents Anisha Malhotra and Kailash Chand. Dr Chand was a darling of the New Labour years and a prolific campaigner for the NHS. In 2012, he became deputy president of the British Medical Association and, the same year, received a national merit award from Labour leader Ed Miliband. A young Aseem attended Manchester Grammar School, where he batted first on the cricket team. His middle-school report card praised a 'courageous, committed and able' young man, 'with a sense of justice that does him proud'. A 1994 article he wrote for the school newspaper aged 16 warned that the British National Party was 'just the tip of the iceberg' for discrimination in the UK and that 'racism is in each and every one of us'. 'It is institutional racism which has to be opposed with all our might,' he wrote, suggesting an early interest in the failure of public bodies that would stay with him until middle age. His interest in cardiology began even earlier in life when his older brother Amit, who had Down's syndrome, died of heart failure in 1988 aged 13. 'He had a viral illness that caused him to go into crashing heart failure within five days of being well,' he recalls. Did his brother's death inspire him to work on heart conditions as an adult? 'Absolutely, yes,' he replies. The aspiring doctor then studied medicine at Edinburgh University, before working in a variety of UK hospitals and becoming a cardiology specialist registrar at the Royal Free and Harefield hospitals in London. After the outbreak of the pandemic, in February 2021 he appeared on ITV's Good Morning Britain to promote the Covid vaccine for elderly people, saying, 'We need to understand where this vaccine hesitancy is coming from,' that 'trust needs to be restored' and that the 'vaccines by far are the safest'. But a few months later, following the death of his father soon after receiving the vaccine, he had a sudden change of heart. 'When my dad died and had a cardiac arrest, someone tweeted, 'It's the vax!',' he remembers. 'I got so angry. I blocked them and thought, 'This person is crazy and they are mad'.' 'And then, when I spent nine months looking at all the data, and reaching out to other people who have more expertise in particular areas, like immunology, it became very clear that this is what happened.' As a trained cardiologist, Malhotra says he believes two 'critical narrowings' in his father's heart, discovered in the post-mortem, were caused by taking the vaccine. Although there was no concrete evidence that his father's death was caused by receiving a Covid vaccine, he believes it is the only explanation for the quick death of an otherwise healthy man. The conclusion, meanwhile, of the largest study of vaccine safety so far conducted, which included research on side effects among 99 million people and was published in the respected journal Vaccine in February 2024, found the presence of several conditions linked to the jabs but judged that they were extremely rare. 'I think it's time for a 'just say no' campaign,' says Malhotra. 'We have seen the worst failures of the system in health with the rollout of the Covid vaccine, which has been absolutely catastrophic in terms of the harm it's done.' The decision to reject the consensus view on vaccines, including from the British and American health authorities, has sometimes made his life more difficult. Two years ago, a group of doctors attempted to have his medical licence revoked, alleging that he had spread misinformation about Covid-19. The General Medical Council initially took no action, then announced in February last year that it would review that decision, after a legal challenge from one of the complainants. The review is on-going. 'I don't think these people are ill-intentioned. I just think that they are acting from a place of fear,' he says. Further controversy came after an interview about statins on the BBC in January 2023, which he used to call for the suspension of the Covid vaccine rollout while the link between the jab and excess deaths was investigated. The BBC was forced to apologise and said the claims should have been challenged. A divorcee, he separated from his wife of five years, Sukriti, in 2010 – Malhotra has no children and lives a solitary lifestyle in Hampstead, waking at 4.30am each day to meditate and read before working out, working until around 5pm, then switching off his phone two hours before going to bed at 8.30pm. 'I'm obsessed with my own health, in the sense that I want to always be the best version of myself, physically and mentally, but also so I can teach others and help others.' 'I consider myself an athlete,' he says, revealing that he has been using the cryo chamber in his office to treat a shoulder injury from the gym. He never eats sugar or starch, other than in porridge, and prefers a high-protein diet of Mediterranean and Indian food with at least 10 varieties of fruit and vegetables a day. The latest target of his campaigning is against Labour's drive to provide weight-loss jabs on the NHS, which he says will be a 'total, complete public health disaster' that he compares to telling patients: 'I'm going to give you cancer as a way for you to lose weight.' 'Inevitably, the safety and benefits are grossly exaggerated, which means there's no informed consent,' he says. 'And we are now seeing that these particular weight-loss drugs are not good for your health, because you lose equal amounts of muscle as you do body fat with the jabs.' There is some evidence that weight-loss medications can result in patients losing muscle mass, but studies have found the quantity is lower than the amount of lost fat. Malhotra says that obesity is a 'marker for other health problems' including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, and that weight-loss jabs only target the symptom, not the root cause. 'As far as I'm concerned, until we have independent evidence showing that weight-loss drugs can actually improve those outcomes, it shouldn't be given to a single human being,' he says. And Malhotra is hopeful that there may be an opportunity for him to use his solutions to the health crisis in the UK; he believes that Nigel Farage may be the answer. 'I do think Nigel is a very courageous politician,' he says. 'He's not afraid to speak his mind.' There is talk in Reform circles, given Farage's popularity with Trump's team, that Malhotra will address the party's annual conference in Birmingham this autumn. He has also been appointed as chief health adviser to Action on World Health, an anti-WHO campaign group co-founded by Farage. But for now his focus is firmly on the US. Today, he admits that initially he was 'maybe a bit sceptical' when he first heard from one of RFK Jr's aides that he was intending to suspend his presidential campaign and join Trump, who is known for his love of big corporations and – critically – McDonald's. 'Once he decided he was going to do that, then I made the decision that I was going to support Trump winning the presidential election,' he adds. 'I felt that, you know, irrespective of Trump being a divisive character, I think he is a disrupter, and it's the kind of disrupter that we need right now in politics.' However, he says it was scepticism from the American public towards the same vaccine that Trump rolled out during his first term that helped propel him back into office last November. 'My view is the primary reason that President Trump had such a clear margin of victory over Kamala Harris was because of Robert Kennedy Jr joining him,' he says. 'The main issue that most people were worried about and cared about in the US was the whole handling, and the mandating, and the lack of addressing the problem with the Covid vaccine.' That claim does not appear to be backed up by the most commonly-cited US polls, which showed that concerns about the cost of living and immigration were the greatest concerns of voters during the campaign. Malhotra also claims that 57 per cent of Americans felt that excess deaths during the pandemic were linked to the vaccine, 'because they knew of a family member or a friend that had been severely affected by it'. He cannot provide a reference to that survey, but a poll published last year found that around 28 per cent of Americans believe vaccines caused a higher death toll. Malhotra attributes that shift to the rise of alternative media, such as the shows presented by Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson, on which he has often appeared. Wider agenda Later this month, he will travel to Washington DC for a fundraiser for RFK Jr, when he says he plans to speak to him about health policy. He will continue living in the UK, for now. But despite their working relationship, there are clear political differences between the clean-living doctor and the Trump administration's health chief. His critique of big pharma companies is shared by some in Trump world, but he also has a wider agenda to increase the role of the state in people's lives to boost wider health outcomes. At a health policy summit in Texas in May, Malhotra, who shares the same paternalistic values as his father, a lifelong liberal, argued that to solve the US's health problems the government must go far beyond what RFK Jr and his team have so far proposed on regulating food and drugs, including a planned ban on food dye and a war on seed oils. And he has claimed he is already in 'active discussions' with senior MAHA officials about how to drive a more aggressive agenda. At the summit, he spoke about his vision of how to get America healthy, promoting a radical Scandinavian-style approach to health that would include raising the minimum wage, providing more affordable housing and improving educational outcomes. 'Modern medicine actually has relatively little role to play in terms of your health,' he says, arguing that 'maybe 10 per cent of life expectancy or health is determined by what your doctor prescribes for you in the hospital or in the clinic'. Instead, he says socially determined factors – the 'conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age' – are the greatest contributors to overall health. 'If you are somebody who is in a low-pay, low-control, high-demand job, that, in a way, is effectively a death sentence in terms of the chronic stress it exerts,' he says. 'That paradigm shift needs to happen. If we don't sort out the mind in terms of everything, in terms of our culture, how we interact with each other… then we can't optimise our physical health.' If anything, he says the association between his scepticism of Covid vaccines and Right-wing politics is more about the people who accepted his views after the death of his father. 'When I started speaking out on my U-turn on the whole issue of the Covid vaccine, the people that were the most supportive of me were actually people who I wouldn't normally find myself being aligned with or having conversations with,' he says. Some of his earliest supporters included Ron Johnson, the Republican senator who used his position as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security committee to invite witnesses who were critical of the vaccines. It is clear that an uneasy coalition exists between members of the American Right and those like RFK Jr with fringe views on public health – who are unlikely to agree on many of the long-term solutions to the issues they diagnose. The next year will reveal what influence Malhotra really has, and whether this British cardiologist is the man to help turn America's health around. In the meantime, he thinks a 'shift' of public opinion is under way. 'Seeing what's happened in America, I think, will give hope to other politicians that have been a bit afraid to speak about these issues to speak up,' he says. 'We are living through a corporate tyranny. And I think once that is understood and acknowledged and collectively, we can fight it.'
