Re: Cholesterol Lowering Drugs

[Guest guest]

well, i take it you haven't read Uffe Ravnskov's " The Cholesterol Myths " .

That would be a good place to start.

a favorite quote of mine about cholesterol, from " Nourishing Traditions " :

" Blaming coronary heart disease on cholesterol is like blaming the police

for murder and theft in a high crime area. "

Mike

On Wed, 11 Jun 2003, jwwright wrote:

> It's not just a few dr's - it's the medical profession.

> What is the problem with cholesterol lowering drugs, other than they may not

work?

>

> regards.

> ----- Original Message -----

> From: Anton

>

> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 12:55 AM

> Subject: [ ] Re: 's letter and 's answer

>

>

>

> > Hi ,

> > Just a logic check - I looked up Enfamil AR, and it's about 50% sat

> fat. However, pediatricians are recommending switching to 1 % fat or

> skim milk at 1 year.

>

>

> Well, that's a bit like pointing out that there are doctors who

> recommend taking cholesterol-lowering drugs. I would say both cases

> are borderline malpractice.

>

> Mike

>

>

[Guest guest]

If I read all the library books out there I wouldn't have time for anything else. I read textbooks and journal articles. That quote is not informing, technically.

What is it that YOU don't like about cholesterol drugs? Do they not work? Are they harmful? Do they decrease MI's? Do they decrease stokes?

Regards.

----- Original Message -----

From: Anton

Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 9:25 AM

Subject: Re: [ ] cholesterol lowering drugs

well, i take it you haven't read Uffe Ravnskov's "The Cholesterol Myths".That would be a good place to start.a favorite quote of mine about cholesterol, from "Nourishing Traditions":"Blaming coronary heart disease on cholesterol is like blaming the policefor murder and theft in a high crime area."Mike

[Guest guest]

> What is it that YOU don't like about cholesterol drugs? Do they not

work? Are they harmful? Do they decrease MI's? Do they decrease

stokes?

my understanding is:

side effects + zero benefits + unethical marketing =

bad medicine + rich pharmaceutical corporations

i think the bottom line with cholesterol is that is has no causal

relationship to coronary heart disease, and so lowering it (just LDL

or both) has no benefit at all. it's a convenient scapegoat for the

poorly understood actual causes of arterial damage. (oxidized fats?

homocysteine? oxidized cholesterol? something else?) anyone who

takes cholesterol-lowering medicine is a victim of what strikes me as

the biggest public information scandal of the 20th century. what's

more, cholesterol is actually a valuable substance for

humans and there's a risk in having too little!

here's a somewhat humorous but also chillingly serious little article

called " cholesterol theory wipes out human race " :

http://westonaprice.org/press/press_040902.html

rhetorical effect aside, there's plenty of hard science to back this

up. the ravnskov book is highly recommended.

Mike

[Guest guest]

> Cholesterol may or may not have a causal relationship to CV disease. It is,

> however, clearly correlated with CV disease and the increased risk of

> infarcts.

bandages are clearly correlated with wounds.

> There may be periods when science is off-track, but it is always self-

> correcting over time.

part of " it " has already self-corrected, or never got off-track in the

first place.

> If cholesterol is unimportant in cardiovascular health, why do so many people

> with hypercholesterolemia die so young of massive coronaries?

>

> Thin Man

because this is a very rare genetic defect that results in a different

physiological resonse to cholesterol than in the rest of the population.

Ravnskov has some excellent discussion of the ubiquitious

hypercholesterolemia argument. Here's his website:

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

mike parker

[Guest guest]

From " Beyond the 120-Year Diet " --

" A $150 million tracking study supported by the National Heart, Lung

and Blood Institute established that lowering cholesterol in blood

reduces coronary risks. " p. 107

In the Framingham study, lower blood cholesterol levels were

associated with lower risk of heart disease.

" Keep yours [cholesterol] below 180 and you very likely will never

have a heart attack. Below 150, you almost certainly will not. " p.

108

We could go to the PubMed search engine of Medline and drag up the

original references relating to cholesterol and heart disease. But

there are thousands of them, it's Saturday, the sun is out, and after

all the rain we've had in these parts, fresh air beckons.

Anyway, given a choice between the advice of Drs. Walford and Ravnskov

(2003 awardee of The Weston A. Price Foundation!), I'll stick with

Walford, thank you very much.

Thin Man

ps. By the way, if one eats raw meat, one is at greater risk of

bacterial infection (salmonella, etc.), trichinosis, and various

parasites. Try cooking meat--it's really good that way. Primitive

man discovered this way before he was so terribly corrupted by

agriculture, and succumbed to b

[Guest guest]

On Sat, 14 Jun 2003, thin_man02 wrote:

> " bandages are clearly correlated with wounds. "

>

> So, what you're telling me is that cholesterol is to heart disease as

> bandages are to wounds? With all due respect the point was cute and

> flippant, but incorrect. It is a false way to question the concept of

> correlation between cholesterol and heart disease. On the analogies

> section of an IQ test, you'd lose a point. Science relies heavily on

> correlative statistics to establish mechanistic/stochastic

> relationships between experimentally measured/observed phenomena.

> Without getting into mathematical detail, in cardiology, broad

> statistical studies of large populations have been used to establish

> putative relationships between observed phenomena, thus allowing the

> formulation of hypotheses, which in turn, can drive laboratory

> experiments to better understand molecular CV biology, physiology and

> pathology. Walford appreciates this approach, as do all good

> scientists.

i was not making an analogy as much as a possible disanalogy, the point

being that correlation absolutely positively does NOT imply causation, and

can only generate hypotheses, as you mention, many of which will turn out

to be wrong, like the one about cholesterol causing heart disease.

you can spin bland rhetoric like " it is a false way... " as much as you

want, but correlation is correlation, no more, no less.

incidentally, there actually is some analogy intended above since

cholesterol is a repair substance needed when arteries are damaged by OTHER

THINGS.

mike parker