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<p>With courage and care Dr. Ravnskov exposes the lack of experimental evidence for the diet-heart theory, which claims that eating less fat and cholesterol will prevent atheroslcerosis (hardening of the arteries) and myocardial infarctions (heart attacks). By examining original peer-reviewed literature, the author finds no support for the diet-heart theory. He gives examples of scientific fraud among efforts to support the theory, including the deliberate selective omission of data points, and the deliberate assignment of subjects in a clinical trial to treatment or to control groups by physicians with the subject's medical records in hand. He shows how the abstract or conclusions of a number of papers are at odds with the actual data in the papers. He demonstrates how the use of one statistical method in preference to another can give a false impression that there is an effect, where there is, in fact, none. He shows how the reporting of differences in fatality rates by per cent reduction (say, a 50% reduction in relative risk) is actually misleading when the actual death rates are quite small in both the treatment and control groups of subjects in diet or drug studies. For example, a treatment that changes the absolute survival rate over a multi-year period from 99.0% to 99.5% represents a 50% reduction in relative risk, from 1% to 0.5% absolute. This is often described in papers as a 50% reduction in death rate. However, when the difference is barely significant statistically, as was often the case, Ravnskov points out that there is no real reason to recommend adoption of the treatment, especially if there are serious side-effects.</p>

More research backing up the cholesterol-lowering benefits of eating nuts indicates that for most people, consuming two handfuls of nuts a day appears to work better than one. The findings apply to tree nuts such as walnuts, almonds, pistachios, macadamias, hazelnuts and peanuts. Although peanuts actually belong to the legume family, they are considered to have many of the same nutritional components as walnuts, almonds and other tree nuts. Researchers who examined the results of 25 previous studies on the health effects of nut consumption found a dose-related improvement in participants' blood-lipid levels. The results are published this week in...

(NaturalNews) The utter worthlessness of Big Pharma's cholesterol drugs was demonstrated recently by a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine which showed that niacin (a low-cost B vitamin) out-performs Merck's drug Zetia for preventing the build-up of arterial plaque, a symptom of cardiovascular disease. As the study reveals, Zetia failed miserably. Patients taking niacin showed a "significant shrinkage" in artery wall thickness, while those on Zetia showed no such improvement. At the same time, the rate of "cardiovascular events" in the niacin group was only one-fifth that in the Zetia group, demonstrating that niacin is far more...

With the government’s blessing, a drug giant is about to expand the market for its blockbuster cholesterol medication Crestor to a new category of customers: as a preventive measure for millions of people who do not have cholesterol problems... --snip-- But critics said the claim of cutting heart disease risk in half — repeated in news reports nationwide — may have misled some doctors and consumers because the patients were so healthy that they had little risk to begin with. The rate of heart attacks, for example, was 0.37 percent, or 68 patients out of 8,901 who took a sugar...

A High-Fat Breakfast of Bacon and Eggs May Be The Healthiest Start To The Day, Report Shows A high-fat breakfast of bacon and eggs may be the healthiest start to the day, a new university report showed. 31 Mar 2010 For the first meal eaten after a night's sleep appears to programme the metabolism for the rest of the day, the researchers found. And the age-old maxim "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper" may in fact be the best advice to follow to prevent metabolic syndrome, according to a new University of...

Simvastatin is taken by around three million people in order to lower their cholesterol and reduce the risk of having a heart attack. However an analysis of clinical trial data in America has found that high doses can cause muscle damage and a rare condition which induces kidney problems and may be fatal. Patients were told not to stop taking simvastatin but advised to talk to their doctor if they have concerns. The American medicines regulator, the Food and Drug Administration, has issued a warning to patients to be alert to signs of problems when taking the 80mg daily dose...

Just days after his doctors expressed concerns about his rising cholesterol levels, President Obama dropped by a family-style restaurant for an authentic – but perhaps not so healthy – Southern style lunch in Savannah, Georgia. In between events, Obama paid a visit to Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room and made it clear he did not want to hear it from the press about his choice of lunch. “I don’t want any lectures about my cholesterol,” Obama said. “Don’t tell Michelle.”

WASHINGTON — Poll results, congressional head counts and federal deficits aren't the only numbers President Barack Obama has to worry about. Now, he's trying to walk off a marginally high cholesterol count.

Inhibitors of HMG-CoA reductase (statins) are widely used medications for reduction of cholesterol levels. Statin use significantly reduces risk of cardiovascular disease but has also been associated with lower risk of other diseases and conditions, including dementia. However, some reports suggest that statins also have detrimental effects on the brain......Our data suggest that simvastatin and pravastatin differentially affect expression of genes involved in neurodegeneration and that statin-dependent gene expression regulation is cell type specific (excerpted)

Researchers searching for a cure for obesity said on Thursday they have developed a drug that not only makes mice lose weight, but reverses diabetes and lowers their cholesterol, too. The drug, which they have dubbed fatostatin, stops the body from making fat, instead releasing the energy from food. They hope it may lead to a pill that would fight obesity, diabetes and cholesterol, all at once. Writing in the journal Chemistry and Biology, Salih Wakil of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, Motonari Uesugi of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues said the drug interferes with a suite of...

When you put Democrats in charge, stupid things happen. Remember those words. Every few days you will see something on the news to remind you that they are true. Like Cheerios. The new Democrat-controlled Food and Drug Administration has decided that Cheerios are a drug and are under its control. That’s one of the dominant themes of Change You Can Believe In. Control. The government takes control, you lose control. The government gets more powerful, you get less free. Now it extends to breakfast cereal. Having taken over General Motors, now the Democrats want to take over General Mills. At...

WASHINGTON — A rare genetic abnormality found in people in an insular Amish community protects them from heart disease, a discovery that could lead to new drugs to prevent heart ailments, U.S. researchers said on Thursday. About 5 percent of Old Order Amish people in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County have only one working copy rather than the normal two of a gene that makes a protein that slows the breakdown of triglycerides, a type of fat that circulates in the blood, the researchers wrote in the journal Science. "People who have the mutation all have low triglycerides," said Toni Pollin of...

Healthy food can make an individual more susceptible to diseases, according to a new controversial book. In the book titled, 'Trick and Treat: How Healthy Eating Is Making Us Ill,' author Barry Groves claims that healthy eating can sometimes fail to keep an individual hale and hearty. "Most people are eating in a way that is unnatural to us as a species," the Telegraph quoted Barry, who holds a doctorate in nutritional science, as saying. "We're a carnivorous species - our gut is identical to that of a big cat. Yet we're encouraged to eat foods that have been padded...

MUNICH, GERMANY (AP) - Fish oil supplements may work slightly better than a popular cholesterol-reducing drug to help patients with chronic heart failure, according to new research released Sunday. Chronic heart failure is a condition that occurs when the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump blood efficiently around the body.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health)-If the trends of the past three decades continue, it's possible that every American adult could be overweight 40 years from now, a government-funded study projects. The figure might sound alarming, or impossible, but researchers say that even if the actual rate never reaches the 100-percent mark, any upward movement is worrying; two-thirds of the population is already overweight....

The nation’s pediatricians are recommending wider cholesterol screening for children and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs starting as early as the age of 8 in hopes of preventing adult heart problems. The new guidelines were to be issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday. The push to aggressively screen and medicate for high cholesterol in children is certain to create controversy amid a continuing debate about the use of prescription drugs in children as well as the best approaches to ward off heart disease in adults. But proponents say there is growing evidence that the first signs...

Low Levels Of Good Cholesterol Linked To Memory Loss, Dementia Risk ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — Low levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) -- the "good" cholesterol -- in middle age may increase the risk of memory loss and lead to dementia later in life, researchers reported in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association. Observing 3,673 participants (26.8 percent women) from the Whitehall II study, researchers found that falling levels of HDL cholesterol were predictors of declining memory by age 60. Whitehall II, which began in 1985, is long-term health examination of more than 10,000 British...

Cholesterol genes 'protect heart' Cholesterol appears to play a key role in heart disease A third of the population have genes that could help them in the fight against heart disease, say scientists. A study of 147,000 patients suggests that certain types of the CETP gene might increase the levels of so-called "good" cholesterol. UK and Dutch research, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, found a 5% cut in heart attacks for those with the key types. A UK geneticist said it could point to drugs which help many more people. What it does provide are...

Blood Cholesterol Levels Predict Risk Of Heart Disease Due To Hormone Therapy, Study Shows ScienceDaily (May 25, 2008) — A research study has found that a simple blood test may indicate whether post-menopausal hormone therapies present an elevated risk of a heart attack. The study, part of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, was conducted in 40 centers nationwide and included 271 cases of coronary heart disease in the first four years of the trials of estrogen alone and of estrogen plus progestin. Paul F. Bray,...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc said Monday it was voluntarily withdrawing advertising for its Lipitor cholesterol drug featuring Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart, because its ads led to "misimpressions." ads involving Jarvik had come under scrutiny, including from a House Committee as part of an investigation into celebrity endorsements of prescription medicines. Democratic lawmakers had voiced concern that Jarvik's qualifications were misrepresented in widely seen television commercials touting the blockbuster drug. They said he seemed to be dispensing medical advice even though he is not a practicing physician. On his Web site, Jarvik describes himself...