The Cholesterol Myths (book review)

Numberwatch. ^ | uk | John Brignell

[Leisler]

The Cholesterol Myths by Dr.Uffe Ravnskov,MD. New Trends, 2000 ISBN 0-9670897-0-0

Reviewed by, John Brignell

How refreshing! What a delight! When your self-imposed ordeal is to read reams of bad science, written in bad English by dullards, it is like a tropical holiday in midwinter to read something that is the very antithesis.

Most of us of the sceptical persuasion were aware that the heart-diet theory did not hold water, but here is chapter and verse to prove it. It is certainly rare to come across a work of true scholarship these days and you don’t get them coming out of universities, where the pursuit of grants from bureaucrats has taken priority.

The author, a medical practitioner, has done more than just explode a family of well-entrenched myths; he has demonstrated just how the establishment maintains an orthodoxy in defiance of overwhelming contrary evidence. It does so, of course, by simply ignoring any facts that are inconvenient; suppressio veri suggestio falsi.

Ravnskov takes nine myths, which are:

High fat foods cause heart disease.
High cholesterol causes heart disease.
High-fat foods raise blood cholesterol.
Cholesterol blocks arteries.
Animal studies prove the heart-diet idea.
Lowering your cholesterol will lengthen your life.
Polyunsaturated oils are good for you.
The cholesterol campaign is based on good science.
All scientists support the diet-heart idea.

He then looks at all the evidence, not just the papers favoured by the establishment, and disposes of the myths one by one. It is a scientific tour de force, for which he will, no doubt, be dismissed as a crank. It says much of the state of the modern world when those who adhere to the scientific method are cranks, while those who flout it win Nobel prizes.

The sheer brass neck with which authors select their data is truly astonishing. The very paper that started off the whole farrago produced a smooth graph passing through data points for six countries. Ravnskov, however, demonstrates that if you add the rest of the data, which were available at the time, the scatter diagram is all over the place. He cites several cases where the summary of a paper is at variance with its contents. Subsequent authors, of course, only look at the summary or, more often, an account of it by someone else.

Two papers giving the results of trials were published in the same journal. The one whose results did not support the orthodoxy received 15 citations over the next four years. The one favouring the orthodoxy, however, received 612 citations in the same period.

These are just some of the many methods used to prop up the myths, but we have seen them all elsewhere to maintain other establishment myths (the low salt diet, global warming, passive smoking etc.) Many of them have provided the foundation for huge industries, the cholesterol one being worth billions of dollars. They enable academics to establish reputations, large departments and win prizes. They enable medical practitioners to go through the motions without having to exercise too many brain cells. The sheer weight of interest in suppressing the truth is awesome. Thanks be that there are still a few small boys who are prepared to point out that the emperor has no cloths.

[Leisler]

Oh well, another trillion dollars and 50 million lives down the drain. All this from the people that brought you urban renewal, war on poverty, gun control, fat control, pollution control, smoking control.......

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Guess it's OK now to super-size that double quarter pounder with cheese. Thanks.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Lets see, now- I could listen to my doctor, and take my cholesterol-lowering medication, based on his lifetime of study and experience with heart disease- OR, I could read this argumentative and controversial book, and decide that I know better.

What a dilemma!

[go star go]

The author is an idiot...

[Blue Screen of Death]

A cheesecake bump. Hey skinny, you are going to feel like a fool in the hospital dying of nothing (and paying for it). Make that a double cheesecake bump.

(Leisler...this is directed to the generic "you" not the real you.)

[Vinomori]

Guess it's OK now to super-size that double quarter pounder with cheese. Thanks.

Hold it. Don't forget to discard the bun and lose the fries.

[Cacique]

Intersting, one of the reasons chelation therapy works in unclogging arteries is that it targets metals in the arterial walls rather than cholesterol.

For a long time the theory that a diet heavy in fat and cholesterol caused obessity was accepted. Only now are we finding out that the culprit is corbohydrates. Of course those that promoted low carb diets were called quacks for the last 30 years.

There is too much junk science prevalent these days. And while we should be sceptical of new studies on everything,l we should also be open minded.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Could get a little messy without the bun - end up wearing it rather than eating it.

[Mercat]

kewl.... I've been on the Adkins diet now since May ( 23 pounds thank you for asking) and was a bit afraid to go get my labs done.

[go star go]

Your common sense should tell you that because fat has many many more calories that anything else that fat leads to fat. But then some people don't have common sense...

[Glock22]

Chief, the lesson is that a scientific study tells us only what happened to the specific subjects of that specific study. Real wisdom is required to discern what that might mean for the rest of us. True science asks a very narrow, specific question, and gets a very narrow , specific answer. Any study which claims sweeping findings is suspect on its face. If people understood the limitations of science we'd all be better off. Science is now corrupt. The one human thing we thought we could trust for the truth has now been harnessed to politics. I prescribe large grains of salt all around. G22M.D.

[JameRetief]

Bump for later reading.

[Cacique]

Paperback edition (click on picture)

A Must Read by Everyone on the subject of CHOLESTEROL (click on picture)

The PAPERBACK edition.

[abnegation]

As your doctor about prescribing Zetia with your cholesterol lower medication, if you are using a Statin like Zocor or Lipitor. In combination these two seem to help keep the lipids under better control.

[Dark Knight]

But most doctors don't do a lifetime of study on diet. Not heart doctors, not pediatricians not any specialty. They depend on studies and research.

You do remember the statin drug that was taken off the market because the drug company kind of forgot to tell the doctors it was fatal sometimes. The funny part about the cholesterol controversy, and it is still a controversy is that the most cited and largest longitudinal study, Framingham, found that there was cholesterol ceased to be significant factor in total mortality after the age of 45. It is quite common for old people to have high cholesterol. The amazing and unreported part is in people with reduced cholesterol, they do die less from heart attacks strokes etc, but they die more often from accidents and suicides. Ask your doctor is he has ever even heard of that little factoid.

Also, we have more people on the cholesterol medication than ever before. Why isn't our lifespan increasing?

But if you really want to find out more than this little review says, he has a web site:

http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

And for the nutty charge or that your run of the mill heart doc does more study, here's his particulars. Again, from his web site.

"Born 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Graduated 1961 from the University of Copenhagen with an M.D. 1961-1967 various appointments at surgical, roentgenological, neurological, pediatric and medical departments in Denmark and Sweden. 1968-79 various appointments at the Department of Nephrology, and the Department of Clinical Chemistry, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden; 1975-79 as an assistant professor at the Department of Nephrology. 1973 PhD at the University of Lund. 1979-2000 a private practitioner. Since 1979 an independent researcher. A specialist in internal medicine and nephrology. Honoured by the Skrabanek Award 1999 given by Trinity College of Dublin, Ireland for original contributions in the field of medical scepticism. A member of the expert panel of the Journal of the Swedish Medical Association (Läkartidningen) and Tidskriften Medikament."

I like nuts and crackpots like him. I just kind of wonder how many skeptics can also be crackpots?

DK

[Cacique]

Shameless promotion bump do we can contribute to FR.

[Leisler]

Hart disease, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases rates haven't decreased at all in thirty years. I guess present therapy is right on top of things. For instance. It took the medical profession well over a decade to realize stomach ulcers, and the resultant stomach cancers from those ulcers, was caused by a simple bacteria (h. pylori) curable with cheep antibiotics, as opposed to treatment with expensive anti ulcer drugs that didn't cure the underlying cause. Ulcer-antibiotic-cure. Over a decade! How simple does it get? If the profession can't move on that, how much faith do you have for more complex and subtle diseases? I am not saying they won't work with you, treat you , drug you, give you therapy, cut you with great concern and effort. They do. But they don't cure you. Because they fundamentally don't know the cause.

[go star go]

The fact that they haven't decreased wouldn't have anything to do with American's eating Big Macs every day?

[Cacique]

No doubdt, fat is fat and fat of course turns into fat. However, fat is simply a fuel in our bodies. If we burn it via activities (ie excercise) then we have nothing to worry about. My problem is that for a very long time we were told by junk science that is where all our fat came from. Common sense should also have told us that carbs turn into sugars and sugars into fat.

Common sense should also tell me that if my neighbor smokes a ciggarette in his house that I will not die of second hand smoke. Too much science these days is tied to political agendas and because of it we have the rpoliferation of junk science.

[Leisler]

If there is any cash involved in this, I want in. Or I can be bribed into silence.....whatever.