I heard once that blaming cholesterol for plaque is like blaming firemen for burning houses. Inflammation is a signal for cholesterol to come and form a protective layer. So, I have been avoiding statins and working on reducing inflammation.

I had one very insistent doctor who told me to take statins (I had read Dr. Sinatra's book by then) and my answer was close to "Hell, no." He became more insistent, but my response was along the lines of, "The answer is no. What are you going to do about it? Jam them down my throat?" Now that I think about it, I was probably older than he was, and had a long life of facing up to bullies. We did not part friends. (My new endocrinologist and I see eye-to-eye on the primacy of inflammation prevention.)