Video falsely links Alzheimer's disease to cholesterol-lowering medications

"What is Alzheimer's disease? Well it's the disappearing of your brain's insulation, the Myelin!!" says a September 27, 2025 Facebook post. "What is Myelin made out off? It's made from CHOLESTEROL!!!"

An identical post on X concludes: "If you go on a low Cholesterol diet or cholesterol medication, it's the fastest way to Alzheimer's disease."

The posts share a video of Joel Wallach, a veterinarian and neuropathic physician who has previously been fact-checked by Science Feedback.

In the video, he links the loss of myelin to Alzheimer's and adds: "Alzheimer's disease is a physician-caused disease. Alzheimer's disease did not occur fourty years ago, even by another name."

AFP was unable to identify the precise date or location of the footage, but a longer version has been available on the YouTube channel of a local US public access television station since at least 2011.

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Screenshot of a post on Facebook taken October 15, 2025

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Screenshot of a post on X taken October 15, 2025

The claim has repeatedly circulated in English, appearing on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Rumble, and recently resurfaced in French and German.

But contrary to Wallach's claims that Alzheimer's is a new disease, it was first reported in 1906 by Alois Alzheimer, a German researcher and pathologist, according to the advocacy organization Alzheimer's Disease International (archived here).

Statin medications -- prescription drugs taken to lower the level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol that builds up in arteries -- were first developed nearly 80 years later (archived here). 

There is no evidence to back Wallach's assertion that taking statins or adopting a cholesterol-lowering diet increases the risk of developing the neurological disease.

"On the contrary, (statins) reduce it" Anne Pfitzer-Bilsing, director of scientific affairs at the Alzheimer Forschung Initiative in Germany, told AFP September 15, 2025 (archived here).

What causes Alzheimer's?

Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia (archived here).

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 6.9 million Americans age 65 and older were living with Alzheimer's dementia in 2024 (archived here).

The disease was identified as the ninth leading cause of death in Canada in 2022, and Statistics Canada estimates about 750,000 Canadians are living with it or another form of dementia (archived here).

Health Canada says the causes of Alzheimer's remain under investigation, but researchers suspect that some may be (archived here):

• abnormal proteins in the brain
• reduced blood supply to the brain
• nerve cells in the brain that stop working properly.

In particular, Alzheimer's symptoms can result from a buildup of the tau protein, which can cause cell damage and inflammation (archived here). 

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Factfile on how Alzheimer's disease develops. (AFP / John SAEKI, STAFF)

Wallach claimed the loss of myelin -- a lipid-rich material made in the brain -- is responsible for Alzheimer's disease. 

But Pfitzer-Bilsing said the degradation of myelin is not associated with Alzheimer's.

Justin Long, an assistant professor of neurology at WashU Medicine in the US state of Missouri, told AFP in a September 11, 2025 email that while myelin changes occur in Alzheimer's, the material does not "disappear," and data does not suggest those changes are driven by cholesterol-lowering medications (archived here).

There is a large concentration of cholesterol in myelin and the brain, but experts told AFP it is so important to brain function that the brain generates it independently from the rest of the body (archived here, here). This means statins cannot cross the blood brain barrier (archived here).

Long said the "strongest association with changes in cognition in Alzheimer disease is with the progression of tau pathology, not changes in myelin."

Statins

Since the late 1980s, statins have become one of the most widely prescribed classes of drugs ever produced, with millions of Canadians and Americans taking them daily to help reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, according to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (archived here).  

Raphael Wurm, a neurologist at Medical University of Vienna who conducts research on dementia, said medications to reduce cholesterol "have been one of the greatest achievements of preventive medicine over the past 50 years" (archived here).

Wurm told AFP September 16 that observational studies suggest cholesterol-lowering drugs, especially statins, may have a positive effect on dementia risk.

"Certainly not a negative one," he said.

Eric Brandt, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, agreed (archived here).

In a September 15 email, he said current literature "does not support harm from statins in regard to brain health." 

This is consistent with a 2024 updated report from The Lancet Commission on dementia that identified high levels of LDL cholesterol as a risk factor (archived here).

Naaheed Mukadam, a professor of psychiatry at University College London and one of the authors of the Lancet report, told AFP in August 2024 that the team found no evidence a low-cholesterol diet increased the risk of dementia (archived here). 

The American College of Cardiology states on its website that research has not shown a link between cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's dementia, or hemorrhagic stroke associated with lowering LDL levels (archived here).

To address dementia prevention, researchers have identified 14 modifiable risk factors, including hypertension and obesity (archived here).

Health Canada says that as individuals age, they should prioritize keeping up their activity level, avoid smoking, limit alcohol consumption, wear a helmet when biking or skiing to avoid head trauma, and manage chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure (archived here).

Find more of AFP's reporting on misinformation about neurodegenerative diseases here, here and here.