It's downright impossible to sort the news from the ads these days.

Just look at Time magazine, which has resorted to begging its readers to take cholesterol meds -- it even called the supposedly low numbers of statin users "depressing."

Last I checked, docs were giving statins to practically anything with a pulse -- making them some of the top-selling drugs in the world, including the best-selling drug in human history.

If you're a drug company, the only thing "depressing" here is that the patents are running out and many of these meds are now going generic.

But don't tell that to Time.

They've come up with an article that looks like a collection of talking points from a Big Pharma marketing session -- and since it was based on a recent World Health Organization report, it practically was.

That report supposedly found too many people with undiagnosed high cholesterol in some nations, and too many people in other nations who are diagnosed... but not treated.

And that's where this thing really flies off the rails -- because the nation that's supposed to highlight what Time calls a "system failure" is Japan, where only 47 percent of patients diagnosed with high cholesterol are actually treated for it.

But if this is any kind of "failure," the Japanese have a funny way of showing it: They just so happen to live longer than anyone else, a little fact not mentioned in the article.

Time also left out that fact that the Japanese have some of the lowest rates of heart disease and death by heart disease on the planet... but eat boatloads of fatty fish (raw, by the way) and deep fry practically everything else.

Listen, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times: I don't give a lick what your cholesterol levels are. If you're between 200 and 300 total and on a healthy low-carb diet, don't give it another thought -- and anyone who'll tell you otherwise is spreading Big Pharma propaganda. 

Or maybe they're just writing for Time magazine.

Come to think of it, there is one big difference between the Time article and a drug ad: A drug ad is required by law to disclose side effects.

The article didn't mention a single one.

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