Cholesterol is still considered a major cause of cardiovascular disease. Laboratory data suggesting that cholesterol in the blood is dangerous has been steadily decreasing, from 260mg / dl in the 1980s to 193 after the millennium. And the lower the limit values ​​set by the physician's committees, the more cholesterol-lowering drugs the pharmaceutical industry can sell. In the meantime, practically everyone over the age of forty years is regarded as a high-risk patient and thus a potential permanent customer for lipid-lowering drugs. Independent physicians criticize the influence of the pill industry on the limits.

"Since I discontinued the cholesterol-lowering agents, the pain in the legs has stopped," says the pensioner Michael Stiller. The doctors have never told him about the side effects and benefits of therapy. But looked very closely at his laboratory values. Already with a value of 180mg / dl total cholesterol some physicians would have clapped their hands over their heads. Out of fear of a later stroke, he has agreed to swallow tablets daily. It was even worse for Graz resident Klaus Schultes. "Every specialist has only paid attention to his area," says the former sales representative. At every visit to the doctor, he got more pills, most recently it was a cocktail of 20 pills a day.

Christine Grabner has come across numerous questionable limits in her research, such as vitamin deficiencies, diabetes or hypertension. Far too often the pharmaceutical industry talks about these limit adjustments. Healthy people are so easily ill.