This blog deals with cancer and would not normally discuss cardiovascular disease, but today’s entry has to touch on both as the reduction of LDL cholesterol, one of the goals of many physicians for preventing cardiovascular disease, causes increased cancer risk.
Most people, including many physicians, do not understand the mechanics of heart disease. A study of the works of Linus Pauling and Louis Ignarro, both Nobel prize winners for their research on cardiovascular disease, gives a glimpse into how cardiovascular disease occurs.
Linus Pauling found that the triple helix of collagen, which supports all of the blood vessels in the body giving them their elasticity and their strength, breaks down, allowing the vessels, particularly near the heart where the pressure is greatest, to begin to shred and form cracks.
Cholesterol in the blood senses there is a break in the vessel wall and patches it, much in the same way blood forms a scab on a wound.
As this cholesterol builds up on the break in the vessel wall, it causes turbulence which, in turn, creates blood clots. These cause strokes and heart attacks.
More recently, Louis Ignarro of the UCLA Department of Pharmacology, discovered that nitric oxide 
produced by the vessels walls is the key to keeping the vessels open and flexible. As we age the vessels lose this ability to produce nitric oxide.
Nitric oxide cannot be added externally as it only exists for a very short period of time. It can only be produced in the body by the blood vessel walls themselves.
Supplementing the diet with L-Arginine and L-Citrulline causes an increase in nitric oxide. This not only keeps the blood vessels healthy, but actually reduces plaque which is a build up of cholesterol and other components in the blood.
What has this to do with cancer?
In a study led by Dr. Richard Karas of the Tufts Medical Center in Boston to determine if statin drugs, which are used to reduce LDL cholesterol in the blood, cause cancer, it was found that those persons with the lowest LDL cholesterol had a four-fold increase in the incidence of cancer over those with the highest LDL cholesterol.
It would appear that the medical and pharmaceutical community, by urging patients to lower their cholesterol with statin drugs rather than increasing the production of nitric oxide by taking l-Arginine and L-Citrulline are actually causing cancer!
Tricyclic anti-depressants such as Aventyl HCL, Elavil, Endep, Sinequan, Norpramin, Tofranic, and Pamelor are used in low doses to relieve pain for cancer patients. According to Web MD, these drugs increase levels of chemicals produced in the brain to improve mood and lower doses relieve pain and may help a person to sleep. For these reasons they are prescribed to cancer patients.