Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks
There is a group of doctors, scientists and researchers called the International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) www.thincs.org. I am a member, and recently a number of us have contributed chapters to a new book called Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks And Statins are Not the Solution.
This was written in honour of the founder of THINCS, Uffe Ravnskov, a Swedish doctor and researcher who has been arguing against the current die-heart/cholesterol hypothesis for many years. He has written several books, many, many, research papers, and had the dubious honour of having one of his book burned, live, on television. [Finland 1992, the book was The Cholesterol Myths]. He has also been ruthlessly attacked, both professionally and personally. Yet he has never given up.
Ravnskov, like all of us in THINCS, started looking at heart disease, or cardiovascular disease (CVD) and recognised that the widely accepted views were simply wrong. Something recognised by many people over the years, including Professor George Mann (who helped to start up and run the Framingham study).
‘Saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet are not the cause of coronary heart disease. That myth is the greatest scientific deception of this century, perhaps of any century.’
George Mann, like many others was silenced. Kilmer McCully, who discovered the role of homocysteine in CVD, and suggested that it could be more important that cholesterol was also attacked. Funding for his research disappeared, leading to the loss of his laboratory. His hospital director told him to leave and ‘never come back’. His Harvard affiliation and tenure were terminated.
Another contributor to this book, Professor Michel De Logeril, set up and ran the seminal Lyon Heart Health Study. Possibly the seminal work on the ‘Mediterranean Diet.’ Yet he is a trenchant critic of the diet-heart hypothesis, and believes that statins do more harm than good. He is, again, attacked ruthlessly.
Yes, there is a pattern here. Dare to criticise the current dogma that saturated fat in the diet raises cholesterol, which then goes on to cause CVD, and your chances of progression in the research world are, precisely, zero. Your chances of getting anything published are, pretty close to zero. You will be attacked both personally and professionally. You will be accused of killing thousands of people by putting them of taking statins – and suchlike.
However, those in THINCS have never given up in their efforts to get the ‘truth out there’ and never will. This book is a further way to help inform the public about the true facts. There are chapters on competing hypotheses as to the cause(s) of CVD, there are chapters outlining the flaws in the current ideas. Some chapters are technical, others not.
Everything is held together by Paul Rosch, a brilliant researcher, writer and editor, clinical professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and New York Medical College, Chairman of the Board of the American Institute of Stress, and a great, deep thinker, on many subjects. Would that there were more like him.
You can get a copy direct from the Publishers here…
Or if you prefer to support Amazon, it’s on Amazon UK here and Amazon USA here
Dr. Malcolm Kendrick 
Dear Malcolm
Interesting – I shall get the book!
May I make a suggestion though? Forgive me saying your blogs and emails do suffer from typographical errors – mainly spelling mistakes – which sadly will damage their credibility in some readers eyes.
This one has at least two I spotted when reading it first time and made me do a double take!
May I humbly but sincerely suggest you give your drafts to someone else to check before publishing? And if you wish I’d be happy to help and do that – I’m often asked at work to help others proof their writing – I make mistake but it’s always easy to correct others writing!
Keep up the great work.
Richard
Sent from my iPad
>
Richard. There is me doing this. With a full time job etc. It is tricky to check everything, but if you are offering, seriously?
Dr Kendrick, I would also volunteer to do some proofreading and (only if essential) light editing. Just let me know. I am a retired writer and lecturer, and worked for 7 years as a professional book editor.
Ordered it straight away. I would have supported the publisher but when I went to pay I found it was £12.99 for the book and over £10 for postage! They must think the Isle of Man is a foreign country instead of 50 miles from Liverpool as the crow flies (or the boat sails). It was out of stock in Amazon but I’m waiting happily.
By the way, I love your typos. They make me feel better about mine. Anyway, we all know what you mean.
A ex-editor myself, I have compulsively corrected many of the errors in my copy of “Doctoring Data” and would be happy to send it to you. (Or better yet, transfer the edits to a new copy, as mine has been thoroughly underlined.) Such an eye-opening, funny and important book (or future ones) could be polished without diminishing its humor, I think. I volunteer – unless Richard or Tom wants the job!
I think your text is pretty high quality (i.e. better than mine!) – regardless of your teenage years! However, all you need to do to remove spelling errors, is to use a raw text editor (as used by computer programmers) equipped with a spelling checker. For example, Notepad++ equipped with DSpellCheck (all completely free).
Alternatively, if you type your blogs directly into an online form, use FireFox with the “Dictionary Extension” AddOn.
Malcolm,
Since I imagine that you read all our comments before you post them – or at least glance at them – why not have a rule that if someone makes a post where the first line says CORRECTION the post is not meant to be published, but supplies suggested changes of any sort, which you can implement or not as you think best.
This mechanism would not clutter the comments, and would rapidly eliminate all typos!
Forget it, the first critism was littered with errors. I can understand the blogs, I presume you can, so lets live in the real world and deal with things that matter. Different if you are applying for a job, but DrK is not, and everything is fine as it is.
I am grateful to anyone who spots errors and wants to help make my blog better. So I will ask a couple of people to help out, if they feel able to. The less errors the better. I just need to think about the practicalities of making it work. Everyone on this blog (well almost everyone) is trying to help each other to understand health issues in their own way, and I am glad of this. I want people to feel free to say what they wish so long as it is not personally insulting, an advert, or impossible (for me) to understand.
Long, long experience has taught me that the one remaining typo, or mispunctuation, reveals itself at the very moment when it is impossible to retract the finger on the “publish” button.
I can probably fit in some proofreading FoC most months. Let me know. It’s my job.
Richard, I’m sure your offer is well intentioned, but your message contains a number of errors and is a long way short of proof-reading standard. For example, you miss out several commas and at least three apostrophes in plural possessives. I could comment on grammar, but I think I’ve said enough. I wouldn’t normally comment on such matters, but you’ve raised the subject and then made far more mistakes than Dr Kendrick. This is a blog and I don’t think the occasional mistake detracts from the author’s credibility. His writing is clear, accessible and entertaining.
Dr Kendrick, I realise how busy you are, but whilst you’re allowing a moment or two for English-language pedants, can I point out a consistent small mistake in your articles and books? (When you write a full sentence inside brackets you regularly place the final full stop outside the closing bracket, unlike here.) When the entire sentence is parenthetical, the full stop goes inside the final bracket.
I would also offer to help, but Richard and other pedants will be poring over this e-mail to find a mistake!
Ahem. I am aware that my grammar is imperfect. Problem with having a mother who was an English teacher probably, causing teenage rebellion against ‘boring’ grammar. I am most grateful for offers of support in proof-reading. It is amazing what you can miss reading through your own stuff – almost everything it seems sometimes. I am not quite sure how to handle this issue, I must have a think. Any support would be most welcome.
You carry on as you are, Dr. K. The (very occasional) slip-ups I quite enjoy – they reveal the passion with which you write. We all make typos when fingers fly over a keyboard. It’s kind of people to offer help though. It indicates that we are all part of a community for which we have you to thank. So thank you. HOWEVER….. this morning I have learned from your blog – where to put the punctuation mark where brackets are concerned. I mist remeber thet.
My comment was meant to be private (inadvertently posted publicly) and constructive.
Malcolm’s message about the true causes of heart disease and the scandal of statins is so important I just did not want anything detracting from it. The majority here maybe willing to ignore any typos but critics (and vested interests) will seize upon anything to weaken the credibility of the author as well as the message if they can’t answer the arguments.
As it happens I know Malcolm has had someone checking his blogs for the last year or more, voluntarily and purely to avoid ambiguities and howlers, not to change the style or content.
So I say again, no (negative) criticism or pedantry intended.
I have read a couple books on the topic. This list includes:Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You, Ignore the Awkward, Lipitor Thief of Memory,The Great Cholesterol Con and Doctoring Data. I’d like to know why I should add this book to the list. What I am going to learn from this book, I have not from the others already?
Curiosity, and support the bravehearts.
Tom Lin
I do agree with you, but in the first two chapters I have already read about the treatment of outliers, people like Ravnskov, who have a fresh look at things and have the courage to say they have a different point of view.
Being older, I try to open my mind to different points of view. Why not?
“I make mistake”?
Sorry, Richard, but there goes your credibility. A pity because Dr.Kendrick’s work, although splendid in many ways, could do with a little tidying as you suggest. No, I’m too short of time to volunteer, but surely there’s an available pedant out there…
Dear Malcolm, I immediately bought the book. Happy to support each and every one of you that is fighting the statin-bastards. Further I am truly delighted to inform you that a Dutch televisionshow called RADAR recently informed the Dutch people about the scam that is going on with statins and the doctoring of data. But alas, the doctors are sticking to their protocol and their patients are too scared to go against their advise. But I am lobbying like hell to get every Dutch person I know to read your blogs. If I can turn only a few people (next to my husband, he is a heart patient but stopped taking statins years ago, he too is converted) I will be very happy. Keep up the good work.
PS I also noticed the few errors but I don’t mind. This happens when you write yourself and reread what you have written. You know the story and don’t notice small errors. But good for you if you accept the help. Unfortunately I am not a native speaker, otherwise I would be happy to volunteer.
Best wishes, Yvonne
Done!
Looking forward to reading this immensely. Always a beacon in the fog. Thank you for all your hard work, one day things must turn around.
Actually, I believe things are already showing signs of turning around. I can hear massive sounds as of thousands of doctors, scientists, politicians and general opinion-emitters getting ready to say, “I never really thought saturated fat was bad… or cholesterol…”
Okay, Dr. K. You told me to so I did. I’ve got a long train journey ahead this week so look forward to a good read.
Sounds like a brilliant and worthwhile read and I will be buying it. I’ve bought your other books and I haven’t regretted it yet. I just hope the other authors are as engaging as you with serious stuff. 🙂
The Thincs website could do with updating as part of the launch of your new book, particularly since it gets a mention on both the front and the back cover. I’m not suggesting that you are the appropriate person to do this though! But as far as I can tell it hasn’t been updated since 2014.
I’ve bought the book and have started reading it. I’ve got up to chapter 2 so far and I’m finding it very interesting.
I do have one gripe – a really serious pet hate in fact. In chapter 1 this sentence appears (I’d put it in italics if I knew how to) :
“In familial hypercholesterolemia, there is no correlation between the very high cholesterol (1,000 or more) and LDL levels (over 250) and any increased incidence or severity of coronary disease.”
Any such numbers in the text should
a) always have the units included
and
b) as a courtesy to the non-Americans among the reading audience the numbers should also be converted into units the non-American audience is familiar with. A cholesterol level of 1000 is meaningless to me.
It shouldn’t be necessary for me to stop reading, find out what the units are, do the conversion, and then carry on.
Those would be American units of mg/dl. The rest of the world uses mmol/l. The conversion is to divide mg/dl by 38.6 to get mmol/l. 250mmol/l would be 9650mg/dl. Pretty high for anyone.
Thanks Doctor Kendrick. I did realise it was US units for cholesterol, but I can never remember conversion factors. I’ll make a note and keep my calculator handy. 😀
Use i and /i in angle brackets for italics, b and /b in angle brackets for bold.
<i>this should be in italics</i> => this should be in italics
<b>this should be bolded</b> => this should be bolded
Thank you, @Martin Back. 🙂
Nice
Malcolm, Uffe, and the other authors of the book: thank you all for your courageous and pioneering work over the years and indeed decades. Without you guys, we would probably be nowhere in this debate and struggle for heart health. And egg yolk would surely have been banned by now…
Duly purchased, I look forward to reading this one.
Ray Davies
Good
This is the kind of book that should be available in other languages. Have you considered Dutch and German?
Money is always the problem for us. We don’t make any, we don’t have much. If anyone was happy to translate, for almost nothing, it could be done.
I could translate into Russian if you want… Provided it helps you if there’s a market for it.
Dear Malcolm, I have been following your blog for a long time now and I have been thinking many times that I would love to translate this in Dutch. Everybody in The Netherlands speaks English, but for a lot of people all the medical stuff is too technical. Reading it in Dutch would help a lot. I am not a native speaker and I am not a doctor, but I have no problem reading and understanding what you are saying. If more people form The Netherlands would offer to help (preferably some people with a medical background), we could combine efforts and I would be totally willing to put a lot of hours in this. For free of course. If other people volunteer, please let me know, maybe we can join forces. Kind regards from The Hague, Yvonne van Eck-Remmers
Of course, I am more than happy for this to happen, if it can be arranged with others. Just let me know if you are getting anywhere.
Such a shame that Columbus Publishing Ltd are charging £10.40 in the UK for P&P compared to Amazon’s £2.90
Hello Marry,
Many thanks for your support
UK postage is £2.46 if you order direct, which is less than Amazon.
If you select the shipping region as UK, it will calculate this amount. If you don’t select a country, it then defaults to the higher rate.
Please drop me a direct email if you’re still having problems.
Andy
Thank you for your collective fighting spirit.
It will be a great pleasure to soon see this book in my mailbox.
Have downloaded. These videos make the same points:
Questioning the Cholesterol Treatment Guidelines
Have been to Amazon and paid up. Keep up the good work.
Ordered and mad keen to read it, particularly as this latest StatinsRgreat media onslaught has pushed my father back on to the blasted things.
I’ve got this book – was lucky enough to get a pre-publication copy- and have already Tweeted about it. I think all GPs should read it and think about what we can do next, as individuals and within our practices.
Now it’s published, I’ll add it to my website reference list.
Joanne McCormack
http://www.healthylivingsite.me
Dear dr Kendrick, I hear your frustration! Keep up the good fight! Just remember this quote: All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident (by Arthur Schopenhauer). It Seems like we are still in stage two, with regards to fat and heart disease, but this too will pass! In 2011 I left my home here in Canada to go home for three weeks and care for my 44 yr old brother who had had a heart attack on the day his wife left him (no coincidence here!). I cleaned his fridge of junk, refined carbs and got him eating healthy fats, etc. When he went back for his three month check with his cardiologist, I told him to take the few sups I had suggested to show him – including co q10. The cardiologist picked them up and said, I am glad you are taking these! So, my question is, why on earth didn’t you prescribe them yourself then to offset the damage your statin drug is doing to him! My brother continues to do well, however, I have concerns about the memory loss he is experiencing, no doubt due to the statin drug (which he now takes only 10 mugs of), but I have not felt comfortable suggesting he come off them altogether since my understanding is, that my brother falls into the small margin of people (middle aged male whose already suffered an MI), that might benefit from taking it. I read uffe’s book years ago when I started studying natural nutrition. He is a trail blazer and one day will be honoured for his work when the world wakes up! Thanks for your contribution to the field too. We need more docs to stand up for what’s right and not just follow the pharmaceutical money. All the best. Jane C-O. MDN.
Sent from my iPad
Dr. Kendrick, just ordered the book. Looking forward to reading it!
I was hoping someone would address the claims of “advanced lipidology” (i.e. LDL particle size, particle number) as an explanation for why LDL-C is such a poor predictor, but from the table of contents, it doesn’t appear so. I’ve noticed some comments here and there on your blog on the topic, but haven’t noted any comments from you, though it’s likely I’ve missed them. Have you looked into this area much? Do you feel it has merit or do you think it’s just moving the goalposts as some have stated?
By the way, all the lipodologists we’ve personally worked with that are pushing the advanced cholesterol tests (Ron Krauss and Thomas Dayspring) are very pro statins, so on the surface anyway, it does appear to be one more tool for pushing the drugs.
I believe it is just moving the goalposts, something that happens on a regular basis with the cholesterol hypothesis. It is remarkably difficult to disprove a hypothesis when no-one will ever, quite, tell you what it is. I liken it to the Hydra. Chop off one head, and two grow in its place.
Thank you for your comment. It’s interesting to me that particle size/number has become a central tenet in the LCHF/ketogenic community, mostly to soothe the fears about LDL increasing with high SF intake. “It’s OK your LDL is in the danger zone, it’s just big fluffy particles that can’t penetrate!” Well my husband’s AND my small particles and particle numbers are off the charts since going ketogenic, and our biochemistries and lipid histories are completely different. Our HDLs did go way up and our triglycerides and HA1c plummeted, as predicted. But I just think they don’t have this worked out, and I think it’s a big blindspot in the LCHF community They all need to read your books and this book you’re recommending…and your blog…and get over the LDL thing. Is lipidology even a valuable science–especially for those who didn’t die young of true FH??
I agree about the ldl confusion but if you believe they are the cause then statins are the answer? Interestingly Peter Attia is a fan of Dayspring but not of statins, I think he suggests like a lot of the ketonees that’s it omega 6 oxidising said ldls. Anyway in case you have not read this here the link. http://eatingacademy.com/cholesterol-2/heart-disease-begin-tell-us-prevention. I find it interesting his take on age as a factor, seems obvious.
Nowhereman,
Thanks for the link. I’m aware of the theory Attia’s explaining, I just think Dr. Kendrick’s is less problematic. There are a lot of black swans in the advanced lipid theory–not to mention the fact that they can’t agree on which lipid test methods (NMR vs Ion Mobility) are accurate. I find it unfortunate that the ketogenic community has felt a need to rationalize the safety of the diet by trying to fit it within the conventional explanation for heart disease (cholesterol), when, as Dr. Kendrick and others have compellingly shown, it is a very minor player. If they studied the broader perspective that Dr. K offers, they’d see it dovetails well, but they’d have to break free of Dayspring.
In my experience, most of the keto “leaders” (with some notable exceptions like Cate Shanahan) don’t talk much if at all about omega 6 or oxidising oils, and I think it’s another black swan in the LDL-P theory. Eric Westman actively encourages the consumption of cold cuts (highly processed factory farm meats) with it’s high O3:6 imbalance. Steve Phinney cooks with canola oil, 3%+ of which is trans fat even in organic cold-pressed.
Iuanali, if you’re concerned about dense, hard LDL or LDL-P (LDL particle count), you can try to replace saturated fat with mono-unsaturated fat (probably from olive oil, avocado oil, avocados, etc.). See the first part of this post:
http://eatingacademy.com/cholesterol-2/random-finding-plus-pi
If you’re really concerned, you could have a CAC (coronary artery calcium) test done: http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/grossman-a-healthy-longevity/the-cac-test-for-your-heart-find-out-your-score/
It’s supposedly relatively accurate as a predictor of heart disease, though I believe there are people who frequent this board with high CAC scores (high = bad), yet are alive and well.
I also have “high” LDL-P, but I find it hard to believe that everything I’ve been doing, that’s allowed me to lose 50+ pounds and make me feel great, is somehow going to kill me. I also never knew my LDL-P before starting my low carb diet (primary care refuses to pay for it, so I have to pay for it), so I can’t tell how it’s changed over time. (Also, all of my tests except one were done while fasting for a bunch of days, which wreaks havoc with your lipid profile.) I also have “high” LP(a) and Apo(b). Woo hoo!
BobM,
I’m not worried at all anymore about LDL-P, but it was a long process to get there. After conversations with Thomas Dayspring, Ron Krauss (inventor of Ion Mobility with Goffman) and others, and doing research, I’ve come to the same conclusion as Dr. Kendrick that it’s lacking merit. What’s especially compelling to me is that each says the other’s test (NMR vs Ion Mobility) can’t be trusted! We’ve actually done a couple rounds of doing both an NMR and Ion Mobility within an hour of each other on my husband and the LDL-Ps are radically different. It’s ridiculous! Maybe it’s like blood pressure–super volatile, or maybe it’s an issue with the labs, I don’t know But in any case, the measures don’t seem that reliable or meaningful.
We get a variety of fats, not just SFs–mono’s and poly’s through olive oil, avocados, grassfed pork and chicken, nuts and wild fish–but I share your sentiments exactly that it’s hard to believe a diet that makes you feel so good over the long haul is going to kill you! Given that all the other markers are improved with this diet, If there are any consequential issues with lipids, I assume it’s transitory and getting worked out.
Bob, I agree with you completely about LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol. Professor Jeff Volek shows a slide that includes 13 biomarkers that all go in the right direction on a low-carb/ketogenic diet, often dramatically so. This includes triglycerides, blood glucose, insulin and HDL. Dr Mark Porter made a similar comment in The Times a few months ago looking at his own blood after he became a low-carb convert. So, what should we make of LDL that goes in the wrong direction? How can this matter if everything else goes in the right direction (and we can add on physical and mental health)? It defies all common sense. However, if LDL is just a moved goalpost from a struggling and lincreasingly discredited theory, I think we’re left with something known as reality.
I have heard Dr Kendrick talk about a wonder drug that massively raised HDL and reduced LDL, but made no difference to outcomes. I think that’s where a sane world would throw this theory in the bin. Nobel winning scientist Richard Feynman said, “When your results don’t agree with your theory, your theory is wrong.”
The relevant Volek slide comes up after 26.25 minutes.
I’m a bit concerned about the information in Chapter Five which included olive oil with its list of dangerous fats (among canola and palm, et alii). As I understand it, this was not necessarily due to the fatty acids in the oils, but it seemed unclear what it was due to.
I’ve only gotten this far in the book, so apologies if this is addressed later on, but is it your belief that olive oil (and coconut oil, not mentioned in the paper, but has 8% palmitic acid) should be limited or even avoided?
I don’t know enough about this. I find myself twisted and turned with contradictions in this area. I think Omega-6 fatty acids, if you take too many, do seem to increase overall and cardiovascular mortality.
Olive oil is great taken cold or warm but should not be used for frying or other very hot cooking. Unlike lard, say, or coconut oil, it has a low smoke point and oxdises very readily. I’m always shocked when TV chefs get their olive oil “good and smokin'” (You’ll know who I mean) before dropping in chicken, onions etc. etc.
Well, don’t forget breast milk has a large palmitic component, so other oils can’t be all bad if they have that in them. All saturated fats are mixtures.
I thought the major think against palm oil, is the environemental aspect.
Had to buy it from Amazon as I need the Kindle version, which, thankfully, I will have by now! I can’t keep lugging 100 essential books around with me! No doubt I shall enjoy it! No doubt I shall be an even bigger pain in the a**e to my statin loving friends! Are you enjoying the company by the way – of all this ‘new generation’ of doctor’s, fighting the fight! I wonder how Aseem Malhotra gets any time to do his day job, he is all over the media – but then I think he is the only cardiologist I would agree to be referred to!
Thank you, Malcolm Kendrick, for all you do.
Posted comment which did not reach you, sorry for repeat, in case it does appear.
Will forward this info to my dear ones who wish I would keep my opinions to myself because they don’t wish to hear uncomfortable truths. I applaud the magnificent Dr Kendrick and all those out there with courage and the willingness to bother to speak out. We benefit immensely.
Of course we will die, the posters on here are not chasing eternal youth, just to try to be as healthy as possible without chemical coshes for every ailment under the sun.
Remember to embrace and love your cholesterol.
“Of course we will die, the posters on here are not chasing eternal youth, just to try to be as healthy as possible without chemical coshes for every ailment under the sun.
Remember to embrace and love your cholesterol”
I couldn’t agree more
Will order the book. (Can anyone give me any advice about how to get my husband to read it?)
Tell him not to read it.
Good idea! That’s the only tactic I haven’t tried.
Ordered, thanks Dr Kendrick, I look forward to reading it!
Bought the Kindle version. Will try and write a review when finished reading. All the best, AP
On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 6:30 PM, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick wrote:
> Dr. Malcolm Kendrick posted: “Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart > Attacks There is a group of doctors, scientists and researchers called the > International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) http://www.thincs.org. I > am a member, and recently a number of us have contributed chapters” >
Booked added to my check out Amazon account to be ordered next week. I’m taking off for home in Florida in a few days. When I arrive, for awhile I’ll have the pleasure of figuring out where my mail has gone. I hope the process is easy this time.
Sorry to read about all the harsh treatment many well regarded researchers have received. Strange world we live in.
Thank you for your blogs, especially this one. I have read everything you have sent, and I have bought the book to keep your other two titles company.
Carry on with your style, typos or not, I am able to take in the text and process it in no time at all, and understand the content. Any typos, claimed or real are a benefit to you in that plagiarism will be easily detected. Bit of a rat if someone does the corrections before publishing I suppose, but I view your writings as honest and far more factually correct than much of the polished, but questionable mainstream papers.
Keep up the good work and ignore the pedants’ trivia. Like others I may be able to detect typos, but I am nowhere near as clever, hard working and dedicated as you, so if you can excuse me while I get stuck into some more humple pie. Not much pie of course, (carbs) and it should have plenty of the older breeds of grass fed meat. Plenty of fats and none of today’s nutrient deficient lean meat.
‘…and suggested that it could be more important that cholesterol was also attacked…’ this is from the lead in to the book ‘Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks And Statins are Not the Solution.’ is it me or does this sentence make sense?
Try one simple letter change … it should be “thaN cholesterol”, not “that cholesterol. Having operated my own consulting company for 15 years, and having a 45-year career in science/engineering, wherein good technical writing (including grammar, spelling, and proofreading) was very important, it’s crucial to remember that I was paid for such attention to detail. Now, being retired at 70+ (hah! And busier than ever), operating two nonprofits and being paid for very little, I would urge folks to use patience and common sense, and not get into a tizzy over proofreading issues among volunteers trying to promulgate life-saving knowledge. It’s very difficult to proofread one’s own work. Suggest corrections, be helpful, and don’t obsess. Let those among us that have never made a typo cast the first, ummm, grammar police badge into the fray.
BTW, Dr. K, I would have liked to order from the publisher, but, for those of us “across the pond”, the book cost and shipping cost exceeded those of Amazon by a fair bit. It’s not that I am “supporting Amazon”, but when they give me a substantially lower cost and free shipping, I have to remember that I am now not salaried and am on a fixed income.
Annie Laurie, I agree. Richard, who raised the subject, was well intentioned and the other offers to help, including my own, have been made in the same spirit. When I began to write for publication, I asked friends to privately criticise my drafts and I learnt a great deal. I was grateful for their coments because they were taking the time to help me, but the process was private.
When the author wants feedback, I think David Bailey’s earlier comment about a private, not-for-publication, method of offering advice is a good one.
…it wasn’t a tizzy, merely an observation. a query. and thank you for your introduction of excellence and longevity.
Have put it on my birthday list 🙂
The Cholesterol Myths was the first book I read on the subject when I first noticed the anomaly, from an evolutionary biology perspective. It was the only book I could find back in 2003. Thankfully there are now dozens of books on the subject.
Thank you.
Typos? what typos?? Hey, maybe I’ll order this book and give it to my cardiologist. I’ve already given him Dr K’s book. For the blogger who was concerned about suggesting to a friend he not take statins – give him Dr. K’s book for starters and let him/her decide. One of my friends got off of them and proceeded to tell my/our primary care doc that I was the one that suggested it – threw me right under the bus! Ha! who cares!
Are things turning around? I’ll believe it when the entire system isn’t so corrupt. Sure, the cholesterol con and statin con can only go on so long and no doubt they know it and are preparing for the next one to replace it so as to keep the money rolling in.
Would love to read it, but I cant order physical books to Malaysia. So waiting for an ebook edition.
its free to read on amazon kindle here in the UK.
Yes it is indeed, but I chose to pay for the paid-for Kindle edition because a) it wasn’t very dear and b) because I would like to thing that our good Doctor K is getting something for it even if it’s next to nothing.
He is so generous to all of us reading his blog (for free.)
Have ordered your book—look forward to a lazy fall day just reading and learning—All The Best
Hi, love your blogs and the information therein. I never jumped on the low fat bandwagon (except for a year doing weight watchers – many moons ago). Our family have always used organic butter, goose fat, organic coconut oil and dear i say it, lard! We all seem pretty good on it and it does not affect our weight. Our civilisation keeps messing around with nature and cocking things up. It all seems to be a roundabout way of guiding the public unto buying things we don’t need, just to fill coffers for the greedy. I suppose that knowledge us the answer – and I’m not talking about information fed to us by mainstream anything.
Keep doing what you are doing. It is brave and enlightening.
Don’t forget dripping!
Hi, love your blogs and the information therein. I never jumped on the low fat bandwagon (except for a year doing weight watchers – many moons ago). Our family have always used organic butter, goose fat, organic coconut oil and dear i say it, lard! We all seem pretty good on it and it does not affect our weight. Our civilisation keeps messing around with nature and cocking things up. It all seems to be a roundabout way of guiding the public unto buying things we don’t need, just to fill coffers for the greedy. I suppose that knowledge us the answer – and I’m not talking about information fed to us by mainstream anything.
Keep doing what you are doing. It is brave and enlightening.
As someone who’s bought and read other titles from Dr K and Uffe Ravnskov I shall order my copy once my Kindle has charged. Looking forward to reading it!
Bought it straight away despite the typos. We are all human and as such error prone particularly w.r.t to typos. They even occur in the most prestigious medical journals despite referees and editors.
Is this the first spike hammered into statins? New Study – Coronary Calcium Scores Can Help Some ‘Intermediate-Risk’ Patients Avoid Statins: More Evidence http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/869250
This is a great book, got in on Kindle.
Hope that it will be widely read, but fearing it won’t be.
Watched the final ‘Trust Me I’m a Doctor’ last night. Bit confused now. They were still banging on about bringing your cholesterol down… big risk factor for strokes etc. But I read an article by Michael Mosley at recently – weekend I think, where he’s recommending a diet for diabetics and seemingly going against perceived diabetic wisdom by suggesting that we cut out the carbs (rice, bread, pasta etc) and eat ‘good’ fats. Can he not quite bring himself to say that fat is ok? or is he going to turn round in a year or so and say say all fats are good and tell us ‘well, if you remember, I did say eat fat’ back in 2016.
I think he is behind the curve somewhat, as are the BBC. I read his article from February this year he does mention eating full fat yoghurt, butter, and cheese. He was also on radio 2 saying the same thing about carbs can’t say he endorsed lard though. He has changed his tune over the last couple of years mind so all power to his honesty.
Interesting. I watched it too. I agree with you.
But did you watch Dr Chris van Tulleken’s The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs Episode 2 later that evening? Now there was a point towards the end of the programme where Dr Van decided this chap called Mike and others should stop taking statins (Isn’t it funny how so many people take them and spellchecker has not heard of them.) He accompanied this group on 30 minute walks 5 times a week. They had various tests – high blood pressure etc and were then retested some weeks later. He went through the results and they were very impressive. But here’s the rub the one test he didn’t refer to was cholesterol. And later he decided that it was better for Mike to go back on statins. The only conclusion there can be is that there was no significant movement in cholesterol levels.
I have to say it seemed a brilliant programme. And yet it seems a doctor who was generally curious and thoughtful was unable to break out of the mind set.
Sue, Michael Mosley’s dad was a diabetic and he’s said that he deeply regrets the advice he gave his father to eat a low-fat, high-carb diet. Just a small word on fats, I regard all natural fats as ‘good’, but I won’t touch artificial fats, such as vegetable oils and margerine. The evidence against processed oils has been worrying since the sixties, but the evidence was hidden or not published because it didn’t fit the theory that saturated fat was the killer.
Stephen T
Read the book, therés a whole chapter by the Japanese on vegetable oils”
Somebody asked, why read this book, here are my reasons:
Very comprehensive, covers what you have learnt from Dr K
There are new angles and perspectives
It is impossible to read too much on this subject
Sad that saturated fats got a bad name. I think “saturated” to most people indicates something you would rather not have (eg soaking wet), whereas to my understanding “saturated fats” mean stable, and non reactive. The “good” (but it’s not) unsaturated fats most people see as good because of the word “unsaturated” where they should be thinking “unstable and reactive”. Rather along the lines DrK wrote about “inflammation” = “healing”, where most people would reach (often under medical advice) for the anti-inflammatories.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
Hi Sue—-You may have already found Dr. Bernstein—-just in case you haven’t—-please !!!give him a close look—
http://www.thebernsteinconnection.com/
Also–Sue—here is a link to an interview with Dr. Bernstein–http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/bernstein-no-other-diet-works-to-control-blood-sugars-in-diabetics-as-well-as-low-carb/1690
Malcolm,
Have you noticed that this website is not mentioned in the list of other links at THINCS?
http://thincs.org/links-critical.php
I think your blog is very influential because it promotes an open debate.
There was a curious article in Today’s times from Dr Mark Porter, their health columnist. The subject was heart health and there was a lot of sense on how a low carbohydrate diet is good for heart-risk markers and particularly good for diabetics. But there was something remarkable about statins. He was clearly lukewarm about them and advised that diet and exercise were more important. He then stunned me by saying that he’d previously taken statins and suffered no ill effects. I couldn’t believe this as a few months ago, he said he’d stopped taking statins because they were affecting his memory. Has Dr Porter forgotten his memory loss? Or has he come under pressure not to talk statin side effects? Has Sir Rory used his usual tactic and told him he’s killing people? Dr Porter’s comment in today’s paper is irreconcilable with what he said a few months ago.
People fear stepping out of line, especially people in the media spotlight.
Just bought the Kindle edition as it’s the only one I can read as a blind person. This one joins the long list of books on cholesterol, statins, low carb, nutritional ketosis, etc. They’ve all helped to keep me remarkably healthy after my liver and kidney transplant 15 years ago. Thank you Dr Kendrick and all your like-minded colleagues. Anne Robertson
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160926221442.htm
The answer may not be simple, but a study published Sept. 26 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation adds to growing research linking excessive sugar consumption — specifically the sugar fructose — to a rise in metabolic disease worldwide.
The study, conducted in mice and corroborated in human liver samples, unveils a metabolic process that could upend previous ideas about how the body becomes resistant to insulin and eventually develops diabetes.
The increasing prevalence of diabetes is considered a health epidemic as more than 29 million people in the U.S. have diabetes and another 86 million have pre-diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There is still significant controversy as to whether sugar consumption is a major contributor to the development of diabetes,” said senior author Mark Herman, M.D., assistant professor in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition at Duke University School of Medicine.
“Some investigators contend that commonly consumed amounts of sugar do not contribute to this epidemic,” Herman said. “While others are convinced that excessive sugar ingestion is a major cause. This paper reveals a specific mechanism by which consuming fructose in large amounts, such as in soda, can cause problems.”
Insulin is a key hormone that regulates blood glucose after eating. Insulin resistance, when the body’s metabolic tissues stop responding normally to insulin, is one of the earliest detectable changes in the progression to diabetes.
However, according to this study, the cause of insulin resistance may have little to do with defects in insulin signaling and might actually be caused by a separate process triggered by excess sugar in the liver that activates a molecular factor known as carbohydrate-responsive element-binding protein, or ChREBP.
The ChREBP protein is found in several metabolic organs in mice, humans and other mammals. In the liver, it is activated after eating fructose, a form of sugar naturally found in fruits and vegetables, but also added to many processed foods including soft drinks. The study found that fructose initiates a process that causes the liver to keep making glucose and raising blood glucose levels, even as insulin tries to keep glucose production in check.
“For the past several decades, investigators have suggested that there must be a problem in the way the liver senses insulin, and that is why insulin-resistant people make too much glucose,” Herman said. “We found that no matter how much insulin the pancreas made, it couldn’t override the processes started by this protein, ChREBP, to stimulate glucose production. This would ultimately cause blood sugar and insulin levels to increase, which over time can lead to insulin resistance elsewhere in the body.”
Herman is new to Duke and led the research over the past four years at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard University with collaborators from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Pfizer Inc.
To test their hypothesis, researchers studied mice that were genetically altered so their liver insulin signaling pathways were maximally activated — in other words, their livers should not have been able to produce any glucose.
The researchers found that even in these mice, eating fructose triggered ChREBP-related processes in the liver, causing it to make more and more glucose, despite insulin signals telling it to stop.
Previous studies have reported that high fructose diets can cause multiple metabolic problems in humans and animals, including insulin resistance and fatty liver disease. Because most people found to be insulin-resistant also have fatty liver, many investigators have proposed that the fructose-induced fatty liver leads to liver dysfunction, which causes insulin resistance, diabetes and high risk for heart disease.
The new findings suggest fatty liver disease may be a red herring, Herman said. The likely cause of insulin resistance may not be the buildup of fat in the liver, as commonly believed, but rather the processes activated by ChREBP, which may then contribute to the development of both fatty liver and increased glucose production.
Although much more research is required, the scientists believe they better understand a key mechanism leading to pre-diabetes and can now explore how to possibly interrupt that chain of events. ChREBP may not be the only pathway by which this happens, and the protein may also be activated in other ways, Herman said. But the study provides an important lead, he said.
“It gives us some insight into what may be happening early in diabetes,” Herman said. “If we can develop drugs to target this process, this may be a way to prevent the process early in the development of the disease.”
The finding could also help scientists one day diagnose metabolic disorders earlier on, potentially allowing patients to make changes to their diets and lifestyles sooner to prevent more serious complications.
As a medical doctor, Herman said the advice to patients remains the same: make sure you’re not eating too much sugar, which often shows up on labels as sucrose (the main ingredient in beet and cane sugar) and high fructose corn syrup. Both sweeteners contain both glucose and fructose and are rapidly absorbed, he said.
In its naturally occurring form and quantity, fructose is not particularly harmful, Herman explained, because if you’re eating an apple, for example, you’re eating a relatively small amount of sugar and it’s combined with other nutrients such as fiber that may slow its absorption.
“You could eat three apples and not get the same amount of fructose you might get from a 20-ounce sugar-sweetened beverage,” he said. “The major sources of excessive fructose are in foods like sodas and many processed foods, which are foods most doctors would say to limit in your diet.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by Duke Health. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Mi-Sung Kim, Sarah A. Krawczyk, Ludivine Doridot, Alan J. Fowler, Jennifer X. Wang, Sunia A. Trauger, Hye-Lim Noh, Hee Joon Kang, John K. Meissen, Matthew Blatnik, Jason K. Kim, Michelle Lai, Mark A. Herman. ChREBP regulates fructose-induced glucose production independently of insulin signaling. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2016; DOI: 10.1172/JCI81993
This might be of interest particularly the uric acid connection.
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnme/2013/682673/
Of course, ordinary table sugar is 50% fructose, so on the face of it, it would be about as damaging as high fructose corn syrup – is the time it takes for sucrose to be split into its two components likely to be relevant?.
I have wondered if this might mean that starchy food is less dangerous than the equivalent amount of glucose in the form of sucrose.
If fructose is to blame, it makes me wonder about exhortations to eat more fruit!
David, I’d avoid starch and sucrose, but if forced I’d reluctantly opt for starch. I understand that sucrose breaks down quickly and equally into glucose and fructose. Some starches more slowly, but they get there in the end. I’ve read that bread breaks down so quickly into glucose that it can begin to happen in the mouth. Many people are shocked that two slices of ever-so-healthy whole grain bread raises your blood glucose quicker than a Snicker bar. What a mad road we took when we went high carb in 1983.
Stephen T wrote:
” Many people are shocked that two slices of ever-so-healthy whole grain bread raises your blood glucose quicker than a Snicker bar. What a mad road we took when we went high carb in 1983.”
This is what I am curious about – because if anything like that were really true, I think the whole concept would of eating lots of carbs for T2 diabetes would have been abandoned long ago. There has to be something different between eating wholemeal bread and sucrose! As far as I can see there are only two obvious possibilities:
1) Starch releases its glucose more slowly.
2) Sucrose caries an equal measure of fructose.
Since as you point out, bread does break down pretty fast – I remember doing that very experiment, chewing a piece of bread for about 2 mins, in school biology – it seems a bit implausible to think it is the answer – you could achieve the same with a Snicker bar simply by eating it slowly over a few minutes!
This is why I commented as I did on Errett’s link
As far as I am aware, some starch breaks down into maltose, (malt sugar, two glucose molecules joined together), in the mouth, which makes it taste slightly sweet before it is swallowed. Maltose cannot be absorbed and has to be further broken down by digestive enzymes in the duodenum before it can be absorbed lower in the small intestine. This takes several hours, so the peak blood glucose comes later and can remain raised for a long time, for me up to, I estimate, ten hours.
The problem with starchy foods is that they are usually eaten in bulk. My weekly spaghetti ration (25 g per serving on a LCHF diet) is pathetic compared to a normal portion! The weekly ration, 30 g of wholemeal bread, is a very thin slice and won’t hold much butter or savory filling.
I have been monitoring my blood glucose for a year now, to help control my pre-diabetes and to lose more weight. I’ve so far lost over five stone in two and a half years. If I were ever to eat again the carbohydrate levels of a normal diet, my pre-meal blood glucose levels would rise successively until I completely lost control of both it and my weight.
Sugar is less of a problem. For one thing, I do not have a sweet tooth. If I do eat a few grams of sugar, the effect is short term compared with starch and easier to monitor. Any really sour food, e.g. home-grown rhubarb, I sweeten with a few mg of sucralose.
Errett,
This is, as I understand it, exactly the mechanism professor Roger Unger arrived at after a life in “controversial” diabetic research. Funny that Unger’s name doesn’t pop up in this context – I wonder why.
Anyway few lectures has impressed more on me than his following 2014 Prize Lecture which turned things upside down for me.
I have been a fan of Uffe Ravnskov since reading “The Cholesterol Myths” many years ago. It was the main reason I moved from HCLF to HFLC that I have never had reason to regret. So, yes, I have ordered the book for fun reading.
The book arrived super-fast on the 29th. I have merely skimmed over the text so far but it has a range of papers full of detail to follow up. If you do not have a science background with some familiarity with biochemistry you will not follow the details, but several of the more human medicine oriented papers are readable without that background. I wonder what Rory Collins would make of the book? There must be an interesting story here at some future date.
Check out this recent advert from a discount pharmacy chain:
44.07% OF PATIENTS HAVE DANGEROUSLY HIGH CHOLESTEROL
Cholesterol-scaring is good for business. It will be tough to get the truth out.
Forgot to add: this is advertising their Wellness Clinic, a part of the shop where you can get blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol checked. It was crowded with people last time I was there. Fear sells!
https://cloud.3dissue.com/129497/129687/167917/HealthyLiving/html5/index.html?page=1&noflash#
How does this work? If 80% of South Africans have high cholesterol where is ‘normal’? How can normal be a tiny percentage of the population? It’s one absurdity built upon another.
wow, 2 decimal places..it must be right
I assume that 80% also means 80.00%
Every TV diet and health programme recently , usually hosted by doctors and including interviews with “experts”, without exception maintains the cholesterol and saturated fat argument, which infuriates me.
How can so many medical professionals get it wrong? Surely they cannot all be biased?
When are we going to see you hosting your own TV special giving the alternative evidence, especially on the back of the new book?
Yes including a prime time on on the BBC last week. It set out to get to the heart of meat’s dangerousness and resorted to this tired old tosh.
My youngest is doing food & nutrition GCSE & her text book is full of the horrors of saturated fat & how it clogs the arteries and leads to heart attacks. It is printed out in black & white & she has to learn this stuff. There is no room for debate at GCSE, you just have to learn & get points in the exam for the “right” answers. Grrrrr!
I’ve benn just diagnosed with gallstones after one year since I gave up statins following your advice. As the majority of gallstones originate from cholesterol-supersaturated bile and statins inhibit hepatic cholesterol biosynthesis, could it be the withdrawal of statins the cause of this suddent gallstones production? Are statins a valid tratment to prevent further gallstones growth?
Wouldn’t regular emptying of the gall bladder prevent concentration of the bile? In other words, eat more naturally fatty foods.
Malcolm,
I bought the kindle edition yesterday and can now read it on my ipad through the kindle app. Note also that Uffe’s original book “The Cholesterol Myths” is available as a kindle edition for 99p. So, to some quiet time and reading …
Keep up the hard work.
Wayne
I bought the book; no battery to go flat, can leave it around and few are likely to steal it, and if they do they might get educated.
I ordered it on Monday 26th from Amazon.co.uk. No postage. However, they are now out of stock and I will have to wait till Amazon get more stock or get from the publishers who charge £2.99 postage. There must have been a run on this book at Amazon from everyone who got there first ! Maybe the publishers didn’t realise how well the book would sell ?
Anne
Anne:
Just a reminder: You can download Kindle for PC (it’s free) from Amazon’s web site and read it (the Kindle version) on your computer. No need to buy a Kindle. And no need to wait.
Hello Anne,
Andy here, from the publishers.
Thanks for ordering a copy of ‘Fat and Cholesterol don’t cause heart attacks…’
It’s a common misconception about Amazon, who, at the and of the day are just retailers who manage their stock levels very carefully. They will only stock what they consider to be reasonable for any particular item. We can suggest a stock level to them, but as a small independent publisher, they usually ignore us.
We have a lot of stock available to to service any orders that come in, and we usually fulfill all trade and direct orders within 48 hours. Hopefully Amazon will be back in stock to help you out with your order with them soon, else we’d be very happy to service you direct.
Very best wishes
Andy
Thanks Andy – Thanks for explaining how Amazon stock and probably ignore you – so it’s not your fault ! if Amazon are too slow I will definitely change my order to you directly.
Hi Joe – I have Kindle on my computer but, generally, I don’t like reading books on Kindle. I love printed books and books on my book shelf. I’m way ahead with technology but when it comes to books, I want books. I downloaded Uffe Ravnskov’s ‘Cholesterol Myths’ onto my Kindle program after reading Wayne’s tip off on here as I have several of his other books, so for 99p it was worth getting that, but it’s not the same as a book in my hands, if you know what I mean. I suspect one day we’ll all have our books on Kindles or other such devices – I already have a lot of music on download on our server instead of on CD – bit sad really.
Anne
Yes, I know what you mean, but now I read on the Kindle app on my IPad at breakfast and I can read AND eat my cheesy scrambled eggs at the same time. It’s such a fag having to put your fork down to turn a page and the iPad comes ready propped. That’s what I’d call multitasking – breakfasting, education and topping up the sat fat.
JanB
I have to confess I read the newspaper whilst eating my porridge, porridge on keyboards doesn’t work.
About Kindles in general, I agree to preferring real books, but they have to be stored, and for stuff I read once a Kindle does the trick.
And you get it straight away
Dear Andy at the Publishers
I ordered the book from you and was surprised at how quickly it arrived – ordered Monday afternoon and it hit the doormat on Wednesday morning. Doesn’t get better than that,
Thanks!
My copy has been dispatched by Amazon 🙂
Anne
Hi all
Can anyone who has read the book perhaps let me know which hypotheses are covered in the book?
I’m still playing catch up on 4 years of Dr K’s blogs and, for example, the “arterial calcification/vit K2 deficiency” hypothesis has had quite a bit of discussion. Is that included?
Presumably it includes the main contenders (for me) such as “stress” and “Linus Pauling/Matthias Rath vit C deficiency”?
Many thanks.
Table of Contents from the Kindle edition
Chapter One: Preface: Why And How This Book Was Written — Paul J. Rosch, MD
Chapter Two: On The Origin And Evolution Of THINCS: An Interview with Uffe Ravnskov — Paul J. Rosch, MD
Chapter Three: How Dietary Guidelines, Bad Science, Politics and Profit Have Contributed To The Current Epidemic of Obesity and Incidence of Heart Disease — Zoe Harcombe, PhD
Chapter Four: The Culprit In Coronary Heart Disease Is Trans Fats, Not Cholesterol: But Why Did It Take Decades To Ban Them? — Fred A. Kummerow, PhD
Chapter Five: Industrial Control of Guidelines for Lipid Nutrition Harumi Okuyama PhD, Peter H. Langsjoen, MD, Alena M. Langsjoen, MS, Naoki Ohara, PhD
Chapter Six: Why The Lipid Hypothesis Of Coronary Heart Disease Is Fallacious And Dangerous — Paul J. Rosch, MD, Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
Chapter Seven: Historical Perspective On The Use Of Deceptive Methods In The War On Cholesterol — David M. Diamond, PhD, Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
Chapter Eight: People With High Cholesterol Live Longer — Tomohito Hamazaki, MD, PhD
Chapter Nine: A Role for Sulfur Deficiency in Coronary Heart Disease — Stephanie Seneff, PhD
Chapter Ten: Stress as Cause of Atherosclerosis: The Acidity Theory — Carlos E. T. B. Monteiro
Chapter Eleven: The role of infections, lipoproteins and hyperhomocysteinemia in the pathogenesis of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques. — Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, Kilmer S. McCully, MD
Chapter Twelve: Cardiovascular disease is primarily due to blood clotting — Malcolm Kendrick, MD
Chapter Thirteen: Statins and Cancer: Cause or Cure? — Paul J. Rosch, MD, Luca Mascitelli, MD, Mark R. Goldstein, MD
Chapter Fourteen: Deciphering The Dilemma Of Perilous vs. Pleiotropic Effects Of Statins — Paul J. Rosch, MD
Chapter Fifteen: Critical Review Of Recent Drug Company Sponsored Trials About Statin Efficacy And Safety — Michel de Lorgeril, MD, Mikael Rabaeus, MD
Chapter Sixteen: Why Reported Statin Side Effects Are Just the Tip of a Titanic Iceberg — Duane Graveline, MD, MPH, Paul J. Rosch, MD
Chapter Seventeen: Systemic Evaluation of Statin Therapy Side Effects. Do The Accrued Adverse Effects Outweigh The Benefits? — Sherif Sultan, MCh, MD, PhD, Edel P. Kavanagh, PhD, Niamh Hynes, MD
References
With all these eminent people as authors I am full of expectations to have confirmed most of what I have learnt during my own sceptic journey outside the “system”. Especially impressive that the true fighter Dr. Kummerow at 100 + (?) is still contributing. He might well be wright about the transfats which I myself with ardour throw out as the main “culprit” of my diet at the beginning of my CVD “carrier”.
Have it in front of me not read it all but looking at the contents. Stess is covered. MK is doing his blood clotting thing. Not sure if there is anything new in it if you, like me, have searched the internet and read blogs like this one. Nothing on Pauling/Rath as far as I can see. Stephanie Seneff is there with her wonderful enthusiasm and her sulphur deficiency, her own blog covers this as well. All in all seems a good read and a useful collection of the common arguments. Certainly worth more than a cheap bottle of champagne and I need both after suffering a BBC programme on meat BBC1 9pm ( another children’s programme made for adults).
Very relevant in the context of this book.
Association Between Lowering LDL-C and Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Among Different Therapeutic Interventions A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
JAMA. 2016;316(12):1289-1297. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.13985.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2556125
ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT | INTRODUCTION | METHODS | RESULTS | DISCUSSION | CONCLUSIONS | ARTICLE INFORMATION | REFERENCES
Importance The comparative clinical benefit of nonstatin therapies that reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) remains uncertain.
Objective To evaluate the association between lowering LDL-C and relative cardiovascular risk reduction across different statin and nonstatin therapies.
Data Sources and Study Selection The MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched (1966-July 2016). The key inclusion criteria were that the study was a randomized clinical trial and the reported clinical outcomes included myocardial infarction (MI). Studies were excluded if the duration was less than 6 months or had fewer than 50 clinical events. Studies of 9 different types of LDL-C reduction approaches were included.
Data Extraction and Synthesis Two authors independently extracted and entered data into standardized data sheets and data were analyzed using meta-regression.
Main Outcomes and Measures The relative risk (RR) of major vascular events (a composite of cardiovascular death, acute MI or other acute coronary syndrome, coronary revascularization, or stroke) associated with the absolute reduction in LDL-C level; 5-year rate of major coronary events (coronary death or MI) associated with achieved LDL-C level.
Results
Comment: A very large number of “statistical units” guaranteed to demonstrate tiny but irrelevant benefits to the individual patient A total of 312,175 participants (mean age, 62 years; 24% women; mean baseline LDL-C level of 3.16 mmol/L [122.3 mg/dL]) from 49 trials with 39,645 major vascular events were included. The RR for major vascular events per 1-mmol/L (38.7-mg/dL) reduction in LDL-C level was 0.77 (95% CI, 0.71-0.84; P?<?.001) for statins and 0.75 (95% CI, 0.66-0.86; P?=?.002) for established nonstatin interventions that work primarily via upregulation of LDL receptor expression (ie, diet, bile acid sequestrants, ileal bypass, and ezetimibe) (between-group difference, P?=?.72). For these 5 therapies combined, the RR was 0.77 (95% CI, 0.75-0.79, P?<?.001) for major vascular events per 1-mmol/L reduction in LDL-C level. For other interventions, the observed RRs vs the expected RRs based on the degree of LDL-C reduction in the trials were 0.94 (95% CI, 0.89-0.99) vs 0.91 (95% CI, 0.90-0.92) for niacin (P?=?.24); 0.88 (95% CI, 0.83-0.92) vs 0.94 (95% CI, 0.93-0.94) for fibrates (P?=?.02), which was lower than expected (ie, greater risk reduction); 1.01 (95% CI, 0.94-1.09) vs 0.90 (95% CI, 0.89-0.91) for cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitors (P?=?.002), which was higher than expected (ie, less risk reduction); and 0.49 (95% CI, 0.34-0.71) vs 0.61 (95% CI, 0.58-0.65) for proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitors (P?=?.25). The achieved absolute LDL-C level was significantly associated with the absolute rate of major coronary events (11?301 events, including coronary death or MI) for primary prevention trials (1.5% lower event rate [95% CI, 0.5%-2.6%] per each 1-mmol/L lower LDL-C level; P?=?.008) and secondary prevention trials (4.6% lower event rate [95% CI, 2.9%-6.4%] per each 1-mmol/L lower LDL-C level; P=<0.001).
Conclusions and Relevance In this meta-regression analysis, the use of statin and nonstatin therapies that act via upregulation of LDL receptor expression to reduce LDL-C were associated with similar RRs of major vascular events per change in LDL-C. Lower achieved LDL-C levels were associated with lower rates of major coronary events.
Comment: The probability of benefit and non-benefit for the individual is what in reality? Maybe someone with access to this paper would be kind enough to work it out. The paper is behind a paywall to protect from skeptics like me. Unlike the BMJ there is no Rapid Response system – must not let the proles comment.
I didn’t know that the BBC’s Dr Michael Mosley was an advocate of a low-carb diet. His father died of diabetes related complications and he was himself diagnosed as diabetic, so began to do some research. This is one of the best talks I’ve seen for a while. His comments on Australian and UK dietary guidance should embarrass all concerned.
Watched this interview with Dr Mosley. Definitely worth watching. He does seem to have changed his ideas since he started Trust Me I’m a Doctor. He’s nearly as good at getting his ideas across as Dr Kendrick! In fact why havent you got a show on the BBC Dr K? I can answer that – you havent got time! Good to hear what he said about low fat being totally wrong. I watched ‘The Doctor who Gave Up Drugs’ too, which was a biff in the eye for Big Pharma. The fact that this was on the BBC will have given a lot of people food for thought (no joke intended!). It was very interesting too that he made the point that GPs just arent up to date with latest developments. Altogether an interview worth watching.
@Sue: where can I watch the interview with Dr Mosley and ‘The Doctor who Gave Up Drugs’ ?
Sue, I’ve just read Dr Mosley’s book and it’s a bit of a disappointment compared to the recent talk, which I really enjoyed. The book is almost totally about fasting and very little about a healthy diet. It does point out that ditching carbs is the way to avoid diabetes, but offers fasting as the alternative. It has almost nothing remotely sensible to say about fat. I think Mosley’s thoughts have moved on in the right direction and the book is now a little dated. Still good if you’re thinking of fasting. I did a 19 hour fast today with little effort. A gorgeous fitness trainer at my gym is a carb lover and says she needs to eat every two hours. What a contrast.
Next Monday night’s BBC Panorama programme is called ‘Diabetes: The Hidden Killer’. A preview shows a male psychiatric nurse who is a type 2 diabetic and very overweight. His breakfast consists of four Weetabix topped with Frosties; lunch is tuna pasta followed by chocolate. Later in the day he buys a large bottle of diet coke and a Snicker bar. Later he eats more Cadbury’s chocolate (50% sugar) and keeps a supply in his car. He’s taking medication and is seeking weight-loss surgery.
He seems like a nice man, but what amazingly self-destructive behaviour. On the other hand, I wonder if he’s ever had any advice that wasn’t low-fat nonsense? In the talk I attached earlier, the BBC’s Dr Mosley describes meeting a diabetic man who was going to have his leg amputated that morning because of his condition. For breakfast, the NHS offered the man two slices of toast or cereals. Inexcusable. They carry out 7,000 diabetes-related amputations a year in the UK at a cost of £60,000 per operation. My daughter works for the NHS and sometimes I have no idea what to say to her.
Perhaps you could ask her what might tend to raise the blood sugar level of a diabetic?
May I suggest low insulin levels that fail to control glucagon with the result that gloconogenesis causes high glucose blood levels. Recently Diabetes UK raised the issue of misdiagnosis in diabetes and the appearance of “adult Type 1 diabetes”.. Surely this condition could easily diagnosed by 1) fasting high blood glucose; 2) fasting blood insulin levels and 3) fasting blood glucagon levels.
Oh dear but “the treatment is the same” for all diabetes conditions. so why go to the trouble of measuring anything that is not required in the DIRECTIVES (aka guidelines). Meanwhile keep eating glucose (aka starch – grain)
Thanks for posting the Michael Mosley presentation.
Highlights for me (and surely visitors to this website):
1. Visiting his GP and refusing meds (I wonder if he’s now labelled as a troublesome patient?)
2. Thought his website designed as an online community sounded familiar (like this one)
3. Bit of Big Pharma bashing
4. GPs don’t get nutrition training (but still lecture you) and
5. Check who is funding the studies.
Worth an hour of your time.
Well, she’s only 20 and very junior, but she answered, “Carbohydrates . . . sugar, bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. All the things the senior nurse tells people to eat.” She’s in training and has to keep her views to herself. It’s a bit like being in Russia in the 1970s.
This is one subject that really gets me going! Three years ago when I found myself in the cardiac intensive care unit having my first stent installed, I was served a breakfast of pure sugar. Cereal with low fat milk, orange juice, french toast with fake maple syrup, and decaf coffee. MInd you – I couldn’t get a cup of ‘real’ coffee because, as I was told, I was in the cardiac unit. Seriously?? I sent my husband down to the Dunkin Donuts on the first floor of the hospital to get me real coffee and a breakfast sandwich with an egg and sausage on it so I could eat.
Then, the next year when I found myself at another hospital (top notch teaching hospitals – both of them), with my second and third stents (and last if I can help it), was given a Coke – full sugar – and some crackers with peanut butter, then for dinner, mashed potatoes, carrots, white bread and a very small piece of breaded chicken. Breakfast, I at least was able to order and ended up with some scrambled eggs and real coffee but they put muffins instead of the sausage I asked for. Either way, I realized that if I’m ever in a hospital again, to ask for a diabetics menu so that I might have a chance of a decent meal.
I told the nurse that was going over my exit interview before I was released was was served to me. I asked her why it was ok to serve me a Coke, full of sugar, and crackers – all carbs, yet couldn’t get me a real cup of coffee. Why were health care facilities serving their patients – any patient – a plate full of sugar, then telling us to eat healthy and exercise. She agreed and said that they were trying to change things but couldn’t really answer me. I also told her that until these doctors, health care providers and hospitals start practicing what they preach that they loose a lot of credibility.
I then told my cadiac doctor that morning as he was going over my list of medications that I would not be taking the beta blockers or statins. I told him that I did not want to be a pain in the A patient but that I was one of those that did not buy the whole cholesterol hypothesis. He explained to me that he had been a doctor for 30 years and I said that I understood and respected that and then he just shook his said and said ‘it was my body’. Thank you for recognizing that Doc.
I’m at my year anniversary from that last event and am doing great. I continue to tweak my diet, eating whole, unprocessed foods and very little sugar, if any. I stay away from so called vegetable oils and only use olive and some coconut oils. I’m specific with a number of supplements including K2 which I learned about from this Blog. I ordered this book that Dr. K recommended – is on my Kindle – and it is very, very good. I’m going to order a hard copy, maybe two and give one to my Cardiologist and probably my GP. I’ve already given Dr. K’s first book to my heart doc a year ago. Loves that, I’m sure. Yes, there a lot of technical information that is a bit hard to get thru but I’ve read so much of this stuff that I am able to get the gist of most of it. This information should be front and center in the media. Keep talking about all of this.
Ok, see what I mean – get me off this soap box. The public needs to learn the truth of what we are being fed – literally – and rise above this nonsense. thanks for listening…..Ks
Kathy, the diabetic menu is likely to be just as bad. I mentioned earlier the diabetic man waiting for his leg to be amputated who was offered toast or cereals for breakfast. It really is a scandal. I saw a picture of a pregnant diabetic’s breakfast in New Zealand and it was Weetabix, toast, fruit and orange juice. She posted it on Caryn Zinn’s website some time ago.
When people ask me about the NHS and nutrition, I just say it’s a backward laughing-stock and point them to the Credit Suisse report on dietary fat. It’s a good service in many way, so I take no pleasure in criticising it. I’m told 20% of the NHS budget is spent on diabetes and related problems. If people got the right advice, almost all of that money could be spent on something else and, I hope, something useful.
Kathy,
May I ask about your “rational” for accepting the stents? Did you experience any real CVD health problem before they got hold of you? A neighbour here didn’t have any problem with his heart but still the “stented” him anyway and put him on statins. I wonder if they do it just because “they can”.
As far as I understand stents do not solve any CVD-problem but introduce a “foreign object” hazard for your body to treat. I wouldn’t do it myself.
Thanks for asking…. My first event included weeks of steadily increasing chest pain whenever I walked. Couldn’t make it down the stairs to the bathroom without having to stop and let it subside. When the pain started radiating out to my arms, thought it best to call my doctor. Long story short involving a stress test, a trip to the ER then ambulance ride to another hospital, I ended up with a stent in my LAD which was severely blocked. Once that was installed, I was good to go. Unfortunately, almost exactly a year later my symptoms returned, just as bad as before and I knew exactly what was happening. The symptoms were debilitating. This time I was at least able to schedule my next hospital visit for the following week and there they discovered that the original stent had reclogged. The doctor put another stent inside the first one and then one more just below it. It was explained to me that the first stent did not cover the original artery damage so the plague just backed up into it. Again, once that stent was in and blood flowing, I was good to go. Clearly though, without my rather good set of collateral blood vessels, I might not have made it. Never had a heart attack though. The only medication I take is a blood thinner and a small aspirin a day. I intend to discuss this with my heart doc in a few months when I go for my stress echo test and start cutting back on that thinner until I’m off of it for good within the year. I’m ok with the aspirin.
I’m at my one year mark again and doing very well. I know that if this happens again, they will be looking to me for open heart surgery and I don’t think I’m up for that. But my intent is to not let this happen again and between my research and this blog, I’ve come across great information. Was already on a low carb diet but have been tweaking it even more. This latest book is fascinating and scary at the same time. It is infuriating that the organizations that we, the general public, count on to watch our backs and make sure the food and drugs that are out there are safe are as corrupt and self serving as the food and drug companies.
This is all starting to come out though and with enough of us crying fowl and getting this information in front of people, it will turn around. It must turn around. Won’t happen over night though and won’t if we all just sit back and let it happen. It’s hard to convince others that what they are eating, including the so called vegetable oils, are in all likelihood killing them and their children. Can’t get my own son to take it seriously.
Ok, i’m back on that soap box early in the morning. At times I wish I did not have these stents since, as you mentioned, is a foreign object now sitting in my chest but at the time, besides not knowing of any alternative, was necessary to get me going again………Ks
Kathy,
Thanks for the elaborate answer!
I understand from what you tell that stents are a temporary relief.
In my case 17 years ago stents were not an option; only a “full” by-pass! Since I refused and also all medication I had to do something about the “cause” and finally turned into the “zero carb” approach. Seems to work!
That’s really good to know that you were able to heal yourself by living and eating healthier. I’m working on that as I do not want to go through that again and I know that if I do, those doctors are going to want to consider open heart surgery and I don’t!
I have now read the first two chapters of the book fully. I was stunned when Paul Rosch says that several papers for this book were rejected by the first possible publisher, including that he was “severely reprimanded for questioning the conclusions of of Ancel Key[s]’s flawed Seven Countries study”. Even Ancel Keys knew there was a problem and certainly did not support the idea that cholesterol had anything to do with CVD.
The interview with Uffe Ravnskov has resonance with some of my personal experiences in the 1960s and later, but still a shock about how widespread ‘politics trumps science’ was/is in academia.
There are lots of typos, as I think has already been mentioned. It may be for a future venture to publish free as an internet document and ask for donations; that way it could be corrected on the fly as people send in errors. I check leaflets for the ophthalmology (a special interest of mine) department of the local hospital to improve language and medical terminology use, and I don’t think you can do without 3rd party checking if the product is printed.
Funny world!
Being in the most northern part of Lappland we am enjoying a “natural” life. Yesterday night we where feasting on a 8 (!) dish dinner honouring the Sami reindeer culture at Stora Sjöfallet. Returning back to our log cabin today we stopped by a small village, Porjus, where at a sign, to our surprise, a restaurant announced “Open every day” and we were in bad need of a cup of coffee.
Stopping, being the only guests, the owner came out and to our additional surprise addressed us in English. And chatting with him he told us he was a retired Royal Air Force officer looking for “something different”, and indeed here it is “different”.
What more, with our personal “LCHF food culture”, and his interest in food having the restaurant, we ventured into the “food and health” subject, and into the subject of cholesterol. He told us that he had been put on statins due to his “high cholesterol” but within a couple of month the side effects” had hit him. His joints started to hurt and he had memory lapses and by pure self -preservation he then stopped taking the statins and his health problems disappeared. When I claimed that the health care system is basically criminal he just agreed.
Did we meet the “one in 10 000”?
Goran, it’s funny but I’m always bumping into those exceedingly rare people who suffer statin side effects. I’m surrounded by those rare creatures!
Eugene- the interview with Dr Michael Mosley is in this blog. Stephen T posted it. The BBC programme The Doctor Who Gave up Drugs you can probably just type in the title on the Internet and it will come up. I just did. It’s probably on BBC Catchup.
Found the the interview with Dr Michael Mosley. Sadly cannot watch “The Doctor Who Gave up Drugs” because BBC’s player won’t play it because I live in the Netherlands.
It’s on YouTube. Just type in ‘bbc the doctor who gave up drugs’
and both episodes show up.
PCSK-9 inhibitors, and other cholesterol reducers, regress plaque burden:
Anyone want to take this on?
Doc K??
Dr Kendrick I’ve been reading up on the causes of aortic aneurysm. Several sites include high cholesterol in their list. I’m not sure how this can be tested. I’ve also come across people who died of aortic aneurysm, who were both on a lower fat diet. What say you?
I say that cholesterol has nothing to do with CVD.
Dr. Kendrick:
Then what do YOU think causes aortic aneurysms? Lack of Vitamin C?
Loss of structure of the arterial wall due to repeated damage and repair. Lack of vitamin C could be one cause.
Dr. Kendrick:
“repeated damage and repair.”
Damage by what mechanism? Inflammation? Infection by…? High BP?
Pauling’s vitamin C (plus lysine and proline) therapy would seem like it should at least slow down any increase in size for an existing AAA.
Nota bene: Einstein had an aortic aneurysm. Before he had anything done about it (they opened his chest and wrapped it in some sort of fabric), it was ~12 centimeters in size. He lived another 5 years. Today, the standard of care is to intervene when an AAA attains the size of ~5 cms. The prognosis after intervention is never very good.
I watched the BBC Panorama programme on diabetes. Still talking about reducing calories as a way to reduce weight, but not worrying about where those calories come from. One guy having had dietary advice still tucks into two slices of toast, and eats copious quantities of chocolate. There was little indication in the program that carbohydrates have to go.
If you look on youtube for videos of commuters in the 1960s, very few people are overweight, but that was in the days when fat was ok.
Sigh………………..
Sigh indeed. Oh well, leaves more delicious food for those of us who know the truth.
Yesterday I was having pieces of salo (lardo) on good quality German rye bread. Had so much energy for the rest of the day, I only needed one small bowl of rice kitchery in addition. That’s all I ate (besides salo and rye bread) for the whole day. My German landlord was so excited to come across something he grew up with, he is asking for 5 lbs of the stuff. Now I need to figure out how someone can ship it from Philly to Hawaii…
I also think I solved sunflower oil mystery. I brought a Russian made bottle from the East Coast. It looks different, smells different and sure tastes different from modern Western brands. You pour some of it on cut tomatoes and onions, add some salt and it’s the best salad money can buy!
But what is the polyunsaturated fat content. It might taste pleasant, but so does sugar and bread.
I don’t think salo can be compared to sugar even though I have no idea what it’s polyunsaturated fat content is. I do think that traditionally made bread (like German rye bread we were having) is good for you. As is salo, I believe.
So believes my German landlord, apparently. He said generations of his relatives ate it, especially in the winter, because it’s pork fat back. When you eat it, it floods you with warmth and energy.
Yes, and that was when potatoes, spaghetti and bread were considered fattening, an 8 oz soda was a treat and orange juice was served in a 4 oz glass. This is all such a ‘no brainer’ yet it’s like people can’t see the forest for the trees….
AH Notepad, I couldn’t agree more. If they feed toast to diabetics waiting for an amputation, what sort of advice are they getting? Eat low fat, eat carbs and take your medicine?
I think carbohydrates were mentioned once. Dr Unwin’s work in Southport should have featured strongly to show what’s possible.
Stephen, Michael Mosley does disappoint at times doesne the? I think he is seeing a bit of light though, so maybe he will improve. I wasn’t going to watch his programme TMIAD this time around as it got a bit frustrating with all the ‘get your cholesterol down or it will lead to a heart attack’ advice. However, there are some good bits if you watch selectively, as it were.
I just watched Diabetes the Hidden Killer too. What a tragic waste of an opportunity. Plenty of dire warnings of what could happen (amputations) and a few murmurings about bad diet but nothing in the way of proper helpful advice. Really pleasant people tucking into all sorts of absolute rubbish as has been noted and the only thing they seem to be confident in, apparently, is bariatric surgery. What on earth is the matter with everyone.
Sue, Panorama was good at describing the problem and poor at showing the solution. The people stuffing their faces with junk after being diagnosed as diabetic baffle me. I feel sympathy and deep frustration that the tax payer picks up the whole bill. Where’s my tax discount for trying to be responsible and not burden the system?
I finished Dr Mosley’s book last and it is strong on fasting, but surprisingly weak on the benefits of natural fat and eating a low carbohydrate diet. Fat has little or no impact on insulin and in a book that repeatedly discusses the benefit of lower insulin, this should have been expressed much more clearly.
I regard the book as useful but flawed. For example, repeatedly advising people who are fasting to eat low-fat foods (in the recipes section) is truly terrible advice. I’ve seen Dr Mosley rightly condemn the low-fat diet and say that low-fat yoghurt should go in the bin, yet his book suggests you eat it in preference to the vastly superior full-fat version. I think most of us know that low-fat equals high sugar and that’s just going to raise your insulin and trigger hunger signals. Just what you need when fasting. Indeed, it could be enough to take you out of fat-burning mode. This terrible advice is given repeatedly in this astonishingly misguided section of the book. His online talks indicate he’s moved on from this nonsense but his book needs to do the same.
That’s a real puzzle. All I can think is that as you suggest, he’s moved on from his own advice, but wants to sell his book!!!
How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat
But Dr Willet of Havard still believes that saturated fat is responsible for CVD
That is shocking, though probably known to many who have been fighting it for years. As it’s the US, a class action should be taken against those responsible for corporate and personal fraud and for the consequences which should amount to something close to manslaughter. They have at best ruined the lives of many people, and blighted the lives of many others.
Yes, Dr. Willet does still believe, but he must. His research budget at Harvard depends on being supportive of the status quo. I remember reading one of his published papers where he reported on a convocation of experts which he convened, to all agree that it was better to eat more polyunsaturated vegetable fats than saturated fats from meat. Do you think that he is motivated by science or something else?
Unfortunately, science has become ‘something else.’ Especially nutritional science, which could best be described as an evidence free belief system powered almost entirely by money.
LOL, that will probably become one of the great quotes in history. I will just leave out the word which if that meets your approval.
Perhaps Walter Willett is like the nutritionists who can’t possibly admit that they’ve been harming people for their whole career. It’s just too big and too damning to admit. Sticking to nonsense is easier.
Dr Kendrick
Wonderful. All that knowledge and a great sense of humour.
Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol. 2015 Mar;8(2):189-99. doi: 10.1586/17512433.2015.1011125. Epub 2015 Feb 6.
Statins stimulate atherosclerosis and heart failure: pharmacological mechanisms.
Okuyama H1, Langsjoen PH, Hamazaki T, Ogushi Y, Hama R, Kobayashi T, Uchino H.
Author information
Abstract
In contrast to the current belief that cholesterol reduction with statins decreases atherosclerosis, we present a perspective that statins may be causative in coronary artery calcification and can function as mitochondrial toxins that impair muscle function in the heart and blood vessels through the depletion of coenzyme Q10 and ‘heme A’, and thereby ATP generation. Statins inhibit the synthesis of vitamin K2, the cofactor for matrix Gla-protein activation, which in turn protects arteries from calcification. Statins inhibit the biosynthesis of selenium containing proteins, one of which is glutathione peroxidase serving to suppress peroxidative stress. An impairment of selenoprotein biosynthesis may be a factor in congestive heart failure, reminiscent of the dilated cardiomyopathies seen with selenium deficiency. Thus, the epidemic of heart failure and atherosclerosis that plagues the modern world may paradoxically be aggravated by the pervasive use of statin drugs. We propose that current statin treatment guidelines be critically reevaluated.
Could statins be government strategy to control population? Or can we be sure it’s merely the pursuit of money?
Given the series of flawed DIRECTIVES one is left with a query
Came upon this last night on BBC iplayer. Sadly only shown in Wales, but available here for 28 days. Much more worth watching than some recent BBC offerings. Some new (to me at least) faces peeping over the parapet alongside Zoe Harcombe & Aseem Malhotra.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07xwstx/fat-v-carbs-with-jamie-owen
Interesting as far as it went, but the machine broke down after 20 minutes. Generally a worthwhile program. We have a heart surgeon taking people to bits and fixing them back together and sees day to day where the problem lies – carbs. Then we have a professor who is pro carbs, but at least we get a look at his patient who has lost 7% on his “healthy” diet inc pills, then we see a patient of a pro fat GP who lost 15% (35lb) (my guess she was around 16st. to start with. No evidence, just guessing.) I suppose the BBC has to provide “balance”, no matter that the information is flawed.
A dietician, who sat on the fence somewhat but with a pro carb bias, saying there is no long term evidence for the effectiveness or safety of high fat diets, and that “the current guidelines are a success”.
Heaven knows what failure looks like.
AH Notespad, I don’t think they’ll accept the current guidance is a failure until obesity and diabetes breaks the NHS, or they all retire, probably because of ill health.
I doubt retiring the practicioners is enough to bring about change of national guidelines. As Max Planck said, science advances one funeral at a time.
I see that Diabetes UK is coming round to the hifat/locarb idea but slowly like the ADA.
I just wonder how many diabetic patients have been damaged by their “evidence free belief system?
I thought I had previously noted the following:
The US ADA (American Diabetic Association) in their guidelines (2008 & 2013) stated:
“Sucrose-containing foods can be substituted for other carbohydrates in the meal plan or, if added to the meal plan, covered with insulin or other glucose-lowering medications.”
How close can one get to claiming that carbohydrates (sucrose {glucose & fructose} and starch {a pure string of glucose molecules}) cause hyperglycaemia without actually saying it?
I have now watched the rest of the link. Well. I made my decisions after reading several books, reading this blog, watching videos, I didn’t see any point of listening to my GP tell me about the dangers of eating fat, since from all the information I can understand, there is nothing wrong with foods containing fats, except for polyunsaturated fats. Even when Jamie Owen’s GP was presented with the cholesterol figures having dropped from 5.6 to 4.9 in 3 weeks, she still wanted to support the current guidelines.
How much has to be done to get people to see the last 40 years has a failed experiment?
You can also watch this on the Diet Doctor website.( Dr Andreas Eenfeldt MD) who is a Swedish medical doctor
Excellent website for LCHF. Lots of information regarding ‘Reversing Diabetes’
with diet.
The recipes are easy to follow and delicious too!
Great link, Carrie. I thought the obesity ‘expert’ and official dietitian were very unimpressive. The advice to speak to your GP about diet made me laugh. We saw the typical response from the reporter’s GP. A good summary of the current situation and low-carb got a fair hearing for a change.
This guy is up there with Dr. Kendrick, as someone who should be revered:
http://qz.com/784615/the-man-who-made-scientists-question-themselves-has-just-exposed-huge-flaws-in-evidence-used-to-give-drug-prescriptions/
Having read this, all I can say is Woe is (or is it are?) us. Can we believe anything at all. And if so, what? It’s very scary out there.
Yes, if you are talking about John Ioannidis, he is one courageous muck raking bloke, the kind that we all revere.
Ioaniddis is exceptional. I respect him greatly.
Dr Ioannidis is the man. As is Dr Kendrick.
In a study appearing in the October 4 issue of JAMA, Luca A. Lotta, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Cambridge, U.K., and colleagues examined the associations with type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)-lowering genetic variants. Treatment with statins, the pharmacological agents of choice for LDL-C-lowering therapy in cardiovascular prevention, is associated with weight gain and a higher incidence of new-onset type 2 diabetes.
The researchers conducted a meta-analyses of genetic association studies, and included 50,775 individuals with type 2 diabetes and 270,269 controls and 60,801 individuals with coronary artery disease and 123,504 controls. Data collection took place in Europe and the United States between 1991 and 2016.
The authors found that LDL-C-lowering genetic variants at the gene NPC1L1 were inversely associated with coronary artery disease and directly associated with type 2 diabetes. For a given reduction in LDL-C, genetic variants were associated with a similar reduction in coronary artery disease risk. However, associations with type 2 diabetes were heterogeneous (dissimilar), indicating gene-specific associations with metabolic risk of LDL-C-lowering alleles.
“In this meta-analysis, exposure to LDL-C-lowering genetic variants in or near the NPC1L1 gene was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes,” the authors write.
“The results of this study show that multiple LDL-C lowering mechanisms, including those mediated by the molecular targets of available LDL-C-lowering drugs (i.e., statins, ezetimibe, and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 [PCSK9] inhibitors), are associated with adverse metabolic consequences and increased type 2 diabetes risk.”
“In general, unlike the association of LDL-C-lowering alleles [an alternative form of a gene] with cardiovascular risk, the association of these alleles with metabolic risk appears to be specific to particular genes, which in turn might suggest that the adverse consequences of lipid-lowering agents on diabetes risk could be specific to a particular drug target. This may have clinical implications for the future of lipid-lowering therapy in the context of the increasing number of approved drugs acting on different molecular targets. The overall safety profile of these drugs, including the magnitude of risk of new-onset type 2 diabetes, may be relevant to the choice of specific agent for subsets of the patient population (e.g., those at high risk for type 2 diabetes who are candidates for lipid-lowering therapy),” the researchers write.
Story Source:
Materials provided by JAMA – Journal of the American Medical Association. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Unfortunately I was unable to download the full text -behind a paywall but from the abstract it is clear that
1) the actual number of statistical units N is very large
2) the hazard ratios are small though significant
3) This suggests to me that the REA:L effect is trivial (1-2% or less) and as a consequence the probability of NO BENEFIT to the individual approaches certainty.
Quoting Feinman ( Feinman, Richard David. The World Turned Upside Down: The Second Low-Carbohydrate Revolution CHP. 17 )
“How can you adjudicate between these two principles: “the risk is small but when you scale it up to the whole population, you will save thousands of lives,” and my own description of the theory (and opinion of its value) “when risk is small, there is low predictability of outcome. You can’t scale up bad data.”
Mike, I really like that statement by Dr. Feinman. It is very astute to describe the statistical conclusions in such a way, and very relevant.
I’m starting to get suspicious of anything that includes the words “meta-analysis”. It’s a study based on an abstraction of an abstraction. It’s a computer looking for patterns among numbers, with no link to flesh and blood people. And when you can only conclude with the weasel words “are associated with”, “appears to be”, “could be”, “may be relevant”, have you said anything at all of significance?
If you are concerned about plaque in your heart arteries and how to reduce it – the best write-up I have found to date. http://www.drjohntafel.com/?page_id=1866
Randall,
Many thanks for the link. Most usefull.
I have always been a Vitt C fan. Klenner (in the 1940 – 70s reported on its medical use on many occasions. He advised oral therapy to be dosed to tolerance, ie until GI upset or I/V administration for both bacterial and viral infections. Unfortunately Vit C is not patentable and therefore of no interest to Big Pharma and the medical establishment. Ineffective patentable drubs or death appears to be the preferred option.
Alternatively liposomal Vit C, which is absorbed far better than ordinary Vit C, can be used at much lower doses but unfortunately is more costly.
A link that might interest you is http://jeffreydachmd.com/vitamin-c-saves-dying-man/
Most thorough Vit C web site I have seen. Thx. I know someone who cured (by blood test confirmation) for now, their leukemia by have injections of Vitamin C by IV. Here’s a video where an US clinic treats cancer with Vit C IV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyxHUO5MF6o
Randall, thank you for the link. You’re right, it’s the best I’ve seen too.
Are you a member of the Track Your Plaque message board by chance? I’m wondering if there are people there who have verified through a CAC scan an actual reversal of plaque from following the Pauling vitamin C/lysine protocol.
Anyone on this blog verified an actual regression? Several people here have shared that they’ve lowered their lp(a) using vitamin C and/or l-arginine, but I wonder if it’s translated to actual end results (e.g. reversal of atherosclerosis) and not just an improvement in the markers. For example, Consumer Labs says that mostly, studies haven’t shown that L-arginine supplements help with nitric oxide–that serum arginine goes up but it doesn’t translate to increased NO. There are similar controversies about vitamin C–that it doesn’t translate, and to the degree it does is from IV rather than oral therapy. Of course, I have no clue what’s actually true! Some actual verified data would be helpful, but I guess as we’ve seen, what data can you trust?
Luanali:
The book: Practicing Medicine Without A License, by Owen Fonorow, contains quite a bit of anecdotal evidence, and some observational studies, supporting the reversal of plaque and CVD via Pauling’s vitamin C therapy (therapeutic dosage). If you’re looking for a RCT, there isn’t one. Nor is there likely ever to be one, due to cost vs potential profits.
The same benefits can be obtained via oral therapy, but IV therapy works faster.
One of the best things about Pauling’s therapy is that there’s no real downside, except for the time it takes you to reach bowel tolerance.
Joe, thanks so much for the book recommendation. I’ll check it out. I just ordered Vitamin C: The Real Story, which looks interesting as well.
I was actually hoping for some more recent and closer to home (like this blog) cases of plaque reversal using the current scanning technologies. So many people are currently following the protocol and/or taking l-arginine, and the scanning is so widely available now, it should be easy enough to verify anecdotally.
I am not a member of Track Your Plaque message board, but a good place to knowledge up. I had a heart problem 10 years ago and my docs could not find the problem. So I read almost every day about heart disease as I was interested in learning about the number one killer. I believe you need to read a lot as there are counter points of view. I came across Dr. K long time ago and liked his approach. I tried many supplements to help my condition. I think I have found the right combo that has helped. It’s a N=1 (The subject size of the “experiment” is 1, meaning you). The best test is a CAC – just a 12 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFRCzuAdl6A
Bought the book for kindle because of the buildin dictionary (my mother language is Dutch and not English). Looking forward to reading it.
Have just read the book. Couldn’t put it down – except for about 3 of the chapters! 2 had really heavy stats. One was unnecessarily verbose. Congratulations, Dr Kendrick, on your highly readable chapter. If the book is aimed at getting through to a wide audience, some of the other authors could have taken a few tips from you.
My copy arrived earlier this week. I love reading scientific books, but I must say a lot of the chapters in the book are not at all easy to read….unless, presumably, you’re a biological scientist or research doctor. Dr Kendrik’s was very readable. And Prof Hamazaki’s and Dr Ravnskov’s. Regardless of the difficulties understanding much of the science, I’m glad I got the book as it will bear up lots of repeated readings and following up the wealth of references given at the end of each chapter.
Anne
One Brave Idea $75 Million Research Award for Coronary Heart Disease Winner Announced
Another Scotsman tackles heart disease. Dr. Calum MacRae, Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. His plan is to look at many unusual factors to predict heart disease, like bone mass, skin, the shape of the face, relatives with similar problems, etc.
https://www.astrazeneca-us.com/content/az-us/media/astrazeneca-us-blog/2016/one-brave-idea-75-million-research-award-for-coronary-heart-disease-winner-announced-10052016.html
Controversial.
They might have accomplished something if they gave it to Dr. Y.
http://cardiobrief.org/2016/10/07/no-75-million-wont-cure-heart-disease-or-reinvent-science/#comments
I think Big Pharma is hoping Dr. MacRae discovers a way to predict CVD risk much earlier in life. Then they can sell preventive medication for longer.
Let’s say you’re headed for a heart attack at age 50. If they only pick up the symptoms from age 40 (high BP, TC, etc.), they only have ten years to sell you statins.
But if the computer at age 20 says you’re likely to have a heart attack at 50 just like Uncle Charlie did because you’ve got the same shape ears as him, they can sell you statins for the next 30 years. And if the statins actually work and your heart attack is delayed for 20 years, you could be on statins for 50 years in this example.
As someone pointed out in another article, the focus these days is on wellness rather than sickness. If you fall sick and take medication, you stop taking it when you get well. So you only take it for a short time. But if you take it to prevent yourself getting sick, you could potentially take it for your whole life. Big Pharma would much rather sell you something for life than for a short period.
Good piece critical of the grant. Read also the 2nd comment where the writer talks about why Google is on board – to collect info for their wearable health monitors which we will all be buying like hot cakes!!! No dummies there. It all just clearly demonstrates how big business is trying to cash in on health issues and manipulate the public.
When I was a young man working in research (not medical, but related), a more senior researcher said to me that doctors do not want to cure you, because it was not in their long term interest. At the time, I found the comment to be offensive because of my naïve bias, that professional doctors would always do the right thing. Now I can see clearly that unfortunately there must be lots of doctors who fit that categorization.
John, I think I agree with your younger self that the statement “doctors do not want to cure you because it is not in their long term interest” is offensive. Certainly there are some unusual ones that fit this profile, but I would guess that most doctors are genuinely interested in helping their patients but are overwhelmed with financial, legal, and administrative pressures. They can’t keep up with the research and have to rely on drug reps bringing in the glossy reprints from topflight journals, which they were trained in medical school is the highest quality, non-biased (peer reviewed and all of that) scientific information, along with their boards which are supposed to vet the research and come up with the best standard of care. Going against “standard of care” is extremely risky professionally and financially, and even to get clear that the “standard of care” isn’t in fact the best practice typically requires a leave of absence. It’s the system–the whole gestalt of it–that has failed so miserably. The doctors are in an impossible situation.
Not such an impossible situation. It takes great courage to do what Dr Kendrick and other doctors like him do and it often comes at enormous personal and professional cost. Many doctors are simply not ready to sacrifice comfort and security even when they themselves possess the critical skills to evaluate the best available evidence. Those of them who are smart enough to look at evidence and appraise it critically, often won’t do even a fraction of what the system recommends for the rest of the population.
I was talking to my father the other day. He’s been practicing medicine for over 40 years, half of it as a general surgeon and the other half as anesthesiologist. He said that the more time he spends in Medicine, the more he realizes the importance of making decisions from common sense. It is that common sense that many doctors (and people in general) often lack.
“The common sense is not that common”. Mark Twain (supposedly).
I think your father said it, that the movement toward a bit more reliance on what seems right to him and a bit less on the system standard is something he’s come to over time, and is apparently something he’s still coming to (“the more time he spends in medicine”). I think it’s more likely he’s relying on experience rather than “common sense.” Many young doctors, young people in general, are very comfortable bucking the system in favor of their own certainties about the world, what they would consider “common sense”. What I appreciate most about Dr. Kendrick isn’t his willingness to stand up to the system following his own internal barometer (honestly, the world’s full of anti-authority types speaking their own personal “truth to power”); it’s that he’s obviously a lover of science, logic, and empiricism. Science is fundamentally different than common sense. After all, as Carl Sagan said, it’s common sense that the earth is flat.
What I also appreciate about Dr. Kendrick is that he doesn’t categorically reject vaccines or medicine, or resort to sweepingly disparaging statements about doctors as do some of the commenters on this blog. Personally, I doubt that as a group, those who’ve chosen medicine for a career are uniquely egregious, cowardly, or cognitively-impaired. Doctors are like any other group of people (just like acupuncturists and alternative practitioners): some exceptional, some incompetent, some fraudulent, but the vast majority are likely doing what they earnestly believe to be right. At least in my personal experience, I can’t say that any of the doctors I’ve had over the years with whom I’ve passionately argued (one I even walked out on) were not smart, good critical thinkers, or advising what they believed to be in my best interest.
I think efforts are better served addressing the system that misguides good, smart, well-intentioned doctors, to continue to raise the flag about the devastating loss of good science (actual science), as Dr. Kendrick is doing.
How can it be that we are so few who see this utterly disgusting reality about our health care system?
Even among the most concerned people one tends to believe in the limits of allowance for those large numbers of parameters produced from simple blood tests. They get personally “alarmed” when they see just one of those values out of bound.
Goran I think it takes some sort of event to open our eyes and get us asking questions. It was the effect of statins on my brother for me. Perhaps people who’ve already worked out that the consensus isn’t always right are also more open minded. Most people just assume doctors and nutritionists always know what they’re talking about and don’t have the time, skills or inclination to look further.
Asking questions makes some people uncomfortable. When I quite tactfully questioned whether breast screening actually did any good to one of my women friends, she looked horrified. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to openly question vaccines, because you’re straight into the mad and bad category, so I’d better stick to statins and nutrition where people are often ready to listen.
Stephen,
“Elephants” are all around!
Tonight, I just met my statinized neighbour in Lappland who has never experienced any heart ailments but still got his stents and the six “medicines”. It is now so very obvious that his memory is failing, confirmed by other neighbours, and I had a long talk with to make him stop take the statins.
My main argument now was that when I myself as a severe CVD case don’t take any medicines why should he without any problems take those. It seems that this was an argument that “passed” through and he was evidently open to skip the statins for a month or so as a “test”.
I am now leaving Lappland during the extremely cold winter coming on and return to southern Sweden but I will come back in half a year and to see what has happened with my neighbours up here.”Real” people! And it is such a profound attitude to nature here – I love it! The elk hunt is over for this year. Delicious meat for sure – I have had some “test pieces”.
Book arrived and I’m getting crosser by the page when I read how deceived we have been. I was even more cross today when we got our travel insurance for our visit to New Zealand in January to see our son and his family. One of the questions asked is whether you have ever had a high cholesterol reading. High cholesterol = heart attack is obviously so utterly believed now that it is taken as read that you are at high risk of you answer is affirmative. Consequently as both my husband and I had to tick the ‘Yes’ box our insurance was very high. So it isn’t just Big Pharma who are raking in a fortune, the insurance companies are also doing well out of the lies being fed to them about cholesterol. It’s enough to make one’s blood boil. In fact it’s enough to give one a heart attack!!!!!
The answer may be in a class action to change the goalposts. It won’t be easy as there are a lot of liars, oops, I mean companies with lucrative vested interests, who will fight it. Another thing to do is to a) NEVER have a cholesterol test since it reveals nothing useful anyway, b) choose an airline or insurance company that may be more enlightened or honest, c) get them to ask customers if they eat refined carbohydrates. That should knock the premiums up.
The insurance companies are actually in a very good position to gather the data for cholesterol relevance as they get masses of data and they can correlate the incidence of CVD. Then they will be able to adjust their premiums to reflect the risk.
Insurance companies cannot look at the data independently, they are not allowed to. I looked into this issue some time ago. They are required to follow medical guidelines. They know the data are nonsense, but so long as everyone follows the accepted line everyone is happy.
Insurance companies were a more reliable and moral businesses before medical guidelines appeared. Before the “scientification” of politics, business and everyday life, people could actually make predictions about someone’s health and risk with remarkable precission.
Foolishness plus too much information is the definition of danger.
The same thing happened to us!
I had a blood test years ago and I have / had high cholesterol. No medication whatsoever.
My husband meanwhile is a great deal older than me again no medication and fitter than lots of men half his age.
Our travel insurance to the USA a few years ago was a joke. His was cheap mine was through the roof.
We now get our travel insurance as a ‘Perk’ through our bank account.
We pay £50 per year as my husband is over 70 but it covers both of us, European and Workdwide.
When told I had a high cholesterol blood test some years ago they were not concerned in the least.
I think once you pass 65 things get more difficult insurance wise. I wish to goodness I had never popped along to the Well Woman Clinic in the first place and had my cholesterol level taken. There’s no going back now. It’s like having a criminal record hanging round your neck for the rest of your life.
Sue, I now refuse all invitations to my surgery for ‘wellness’ for that reason. The last time I went is the last time. The nonsense the nurse talked about fat and carbohydrates was funny, but I didn’t go for a laugh. I pointed her in the right direction, as best I could, and leant her a book.
Yes I fell into that trap too. I was ‘tutted’ at by the chubby Health Care Assistant and told I should have a repeat blood test in 6 months time after I had cut down on some ‘fats in my diet’
I’m not overweight, I’ve never smoked,
BP 110/69.
Did I stop eating butter, cheese, cream etc, and switch to Flora?
NO
Did I go back and have another blood test?
NO not likely 😂
Well done, Jennie. I’m always polite at my surgery, but I remember that I’m in charge. I’m doing nothing and taking nothing unless I want to. I’d be pretty firm with tutting from chubby chops, but maybe men get it less.
They’ve got a nerve these nurses! Trouble is we’ll have ‘troublesome patient’ written on our notes. Carry on with the butter cheese and cream. My favourite thing at the moment is homemade yoghurt with cream.
Sue, I LOVE my homemade yogurt and look forward to it every morning. I make an 18% fat version using 2 litres of heavy cream and 2 litres of 2% milk. It comes out less thick than commercial yogurts (also I don’t bother straining out the water or whey) but I love the taste and the berries which I add. I make 4 litres at a time and it keeps just fine for the 2 weeks which it takes to eat it all.
Arteries plaqued up – no problem just get them reamed out – a 56 second video http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-catheter-lets-doctors-see-inside-arteries-for-first-time
Does plaque tend to build up in straight arteries? How big a problem does interfering with the normal processes cause?
“blockages” are concentrated near the heart, where arteries are constantly bent or squeezed. http://www.drjohntafel.com/?page_id=1866 I would be concerned about some of the debris causing a stroke, so I will use supplements.
You mean there is something wrong with sugar!! – The Food and Drug Administration has finally decided to put a cap on daily sugar intake for Americans. https://www.dietdoctor.com/placing-a-cap-on-americans-consumption-of-added-sugar
Randall, how will Americans manage with just twelve teaspoons of sugar a day? It’s certainly the junk ingredient of choice for food manufacturers. A 10p a gram tax on added sugar would make them rapidly reformulate. The taxpayer is paying the health cost of this madness.
This morning I was in Sainsbury’s looking at the sugar-added junk fest that is the modern supermarket. I have American friends who tell me it’s genuinely difficult to buy a decent full-fat yoghurt or more than one decent butter. Fotunately, that’s not the case here, but I looked at display after display of packs and cans loaded with added sugar. Six spoons in a soup, seven in beans and so on. And we have 5,000 new diabetics diagnosed each week, who will then be told to eat mostly carbohydrates (glucose). Medieval.
Feinman points out in his book that a lot of fructose (~60%) ends up as glucose anyway. He discounts problems of fructose other than the fact that it is a carbohydrate.
Not read this but I think he’s wrong. For one thing uric acid is produced as a by-product. Uric acid can be a pro-oxidant and it is known to reduce NO.
Trumpicon
So eating a lot of fruit increases the fructose, which is converted to Uric Acid which is not great for the endothelium?
Is this right?
Maybe the same way they got the masses to stop eating fat – scare them.
That will be nigh impossible as there is a lot of money available (as now) for the usually dishonest reassurance. As if sugar is needed in a diet.
You can only scare if you have a believable weapon. Science could provide it. The best weapons, RTCs, are only as good as the questions they ask, the specificity of the answers (data) they get and the slant (initial bias/self interest) their interpretation is given. This, provided the questions are asked at all.
If Harvard could be bought by sugar, what’s to believe anymore?
I commend all sceptics to read the following:
https://www.polypill.com/diet.html
Despite all the evidence to the contrary the advice presented demonstrates very clearly the standard of nutritional science described by Dr Kendrick; namely “Unfortunately, science has become ‘something else.’ Especially nutritional science, which could best be described as an evidence free belief system powered almost entirely by money“.
Mike, it’s so disappointing that they’re stuck in the past. According to these people we should reduce added sugar to 80 grammes — twenty tea spoons of sugar! Sugar in fruit doesn’t count, apparently. I wonder if our liver knows that?
There is a lot of confusion about ‘sugar’. They are not all the same.
Prepare to be even more disappointed: https://www.soylent.com/
0 cholesterol, low sodium, low fat, low sugar, optimal and tasteless nutrition for human machines. Plus, you get the comforting feeling of saving the planet by preventing human reproduction altogether. Reverend Malthus would be so happy.
I guess they never so the movie “soylent green” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_jGOKYHxaQ
. Oh dear, I would need their pills by the barrow load. I had 4 large eggs for breakfast this morning as I was expecting a long day. Actually that’s rubbish because I normally have 2 eggs, but when they weigh over 100g each, well you get the picture. However I missed my usual lunch of around 6 cubic inches of cheese. Sorry for the silly units but I’ve never bothered weighing it.
. Now I’ve got past that bit, what credibility do these people think they have? Any exists only while they peddle the snake oil diets (though that may be more nutritious than the polypill)
In today’s Times there was an interesting article by Dr Mark Porter where he discussed the overuse of drugs and how ineffective many of them were. He said that a third of his elderly patients in residential care and asked the question, “Why?” I thought even the statinators conceded that they shouldn’t be taken by the elderly. Isn’t low cholesterol a high risk factor in the elderly, particularly for women?
Once you’ve been given a drug it seems like you go on medical auto-pilot and get it forever. Repeat prescriptions are easier than a proper review.
Stephen T
Frankly the preventive use of statins in healthy non-cardiac individuals is a waste of time. I do not see anyone trumpeting “treat X million with statins and “save” 10,000 MIs a year” I suspect that “X” would so astronomical that even the gullible would not believe it.
Mike
Not only would treating healthy people be a waste of time, it would also waste money, that health services can ill afford, as well as being bad for those treated.
Trumpicon, you say there’s a lot of confusion about sugar and that they’re not all the same. If you make a comment like that without adding some facts, you merely add to the confusion. The Sugar Association would approve.
I think most of us know that table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose.
This is a reply to Errett’s post of Oct 13 0101hrs.
There is nothing here but a link which appears grossly off topic and looks more like advertising spam than anything I have seen in these comments. I may be wrong, and would be grateful to receive corrections.
I just finished my stint in the US. I had a great time looking at all the different varieties of food at Whole Foods. Yoghurt: over 120 different kinds of yoghurt in over 20+ brands. Despite Authentic Greek Yoghurt stamped on the labels of some, none of them were. Low fat (2%), and sugars up to 32 g /serving. There was only ONE natural REAL yoghurt. Made from goat’s milk and absolutely delicious. I found plenty of good butters, mostly French but a couple of American ones and a couple of Irish rounding out the lot. Cream: forget it. Regular cream was fine but unlike Australia there were no proper double and triple creams. To be fair they are not mostly used in Australia either but they are available; we tend to get alginated cream for Thick Whipping cream in OZ- not my idea of great either. Oh to be in the French countryside.
You must have been to Whole Foods deep in the city. My W F stores carry REAL yogurt, organic, made from whole milk from grass-fed Normande and Jersey cows and cultures – nothing else. Wonderful stuff.
Dunno ’bout double and triple. ??
An interesting article by Dr David Grimes, just published.
http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2016/10/cholesterol-statins-and-council-of.html?spref=tw
A good long term study on men not rodents – why you need antioxidants. Key take away – Under oxidative stress by reactive oxygen species, polyunsaturated fatty acids of LDL are easily oxidized producing a number of oxidation products (e.g. conjugated dienes, C18 hydroxy fatty acids, malondialdehyde). It has been shown that the plasma levels of oxidative modified LDL (ox-LDL) are higher in patients with AMI. In addition, increased levels of oxidized LDL were observed in patients with CHD. A recent in vivo study has provided evidence that ox-LDL can be used to predict future atherosclerotic events. http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/6/835
Can I ask a few questions on this current blog following a GP appointment this morning? They are CVD related – CT calcium scoring, flu and pneumonia jabs.
CT calcium scoring
Calcification was covered in Part X (and appears elsewhere in comments). Some readers have posted Ivor Cummins’ presentations and I’ve googled it a bit too. Armed (as always) with printouts I broached this with my GP and…as expected, he shut me down. His arguments (predictably incorporating and blaming cholesterol) and comments were that it was (a) a waste of my money (b) we know there is calcification present anyway because of my CV event (c) if it was any good the NHS would do it (d) the medications prescribed were dealing with the problem and (e) it was not reversable.
Thus spoke my GP for whom it is an abstract situation, and can’t understand why some of us would like answers if possible and some science. And not just shovel down medications or increased dosages without any science to support the health care professionals decisions.
1. I’d like a scan and score – is there any point after an event? Why not – I’m happy to pay?
2. My understanding is that calcification is both containable and reversable e.g. I’ve read lots on the role of vitamin K2.
And then the hard sell:
Flu jabs
GP stated I was now high risk/vulnerable and he got as far as getting his kit out to jab me there and then. I declined (twice).
Pneumonia jabs
GP then defaulted to pnuemonia jab, for the same reason. I declined again.
I suspect there was an element of both QoF and concern but do any readers have any comments about the 2 jabs. I wasn’t tempted to have them.
But yet again left feeling a lot worse (mentally) than when I went in.
Regards
Hi Charles,
First of all – find yourself another doctor. Second, you might want to consider that flu shot, just so, you know, you don’t get the flu.
I am almost finished with this book – it’s a tough one, lots of technical jargon but I’m getting through it. After the first couple of chapters ( I have it on my Kindle ) I ordered two hard copies. Wrapped them up in brown paper and twine with a note for each – gave one to my heart doc and one to my GP. Haven’t heard yet from either but I did give Dr. K’s cholesterol book to my heart doc last year. He thought it was interesting.
I expect my doctors to be open minded and to think outside the box. I am fortunate they don’t give me a hard time about my opinions on statins and such. Will see my heart doc in a few weeks when I have a stress echo test. Will report back as to his thoughts on this book, assuming he reads it.
Keep reading, keep talking, keep blogging and keep after your doctor.
best of luck
Kathy
Pneumonia kills. So does flu. Sometimes. Your time? Both are horrible and frightening to experience. I’m not saying the vaccinations against these are perfect, but your chances improve with them, side effects notwithstanding. I get them.
My sister and I had chicken pox as kids. She came down with shingles a few years ago. More than a year of bloody PAINFUL rash on her scalp. Bedridden. She was OK afterwards, but some people have flare-ups perpetually. I got myself the vac, thank you very much. Again, the vac is not perfect, but contemplate the possible alternative.
Do some solid independent research. Look for hard numbers, avoiding others’ opinions. Figure your odds yourself. Then decide.
Please can you make your books avaialble on the iBooks Bookstore.
Read this book! (Or any other.) Get an additional (almost) year of life. All you need do is read.
Science says so. Hm. What’s REALLY behind this?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616303689
I look forward to buying this book
I bought this book as soon as it was mentioned in this blog and have just finished it. I won’t lie – I struggled. I didn’t understand chunks of it and I skipped those bits, but I understood enough to know that this is a book that should be read. Particularly by those in the medical profession who surely must respect the views and research of the men and women who contributed to this excellent work. I am going to do my bit by giving it to a member of my wider family who is in her final year of medical training. She is a person of principle so I know she will read it. I hope she passes it on too. I hope too, that the people who have risked their careers to speak out will be vindicated and one day thanked for their bravery.
I gave one to my heart doc and one to my primary care doc.
I finished reading the whole book at last. The book has a fascinating collection of different views into vascular disease with a main focus on the heart. It is a gripping read. There are copious references to give a good start to follow up any issue. There are potential clashes of views but that may just reflect the complexity of human physiology and biochemistry where no one article can give a complete picture.
Every chapter has a gem of insight. Although I have known about these issues since reading Uffe Ravnskov’s first book, including the role of big pharma and its sponsors, it still shocked me to read again in detail the misinformation and statistical spin – and one has to say lies. Even twenty years ago I still accepted the idea that one had to reduce cholesterol and used to buy a margarine with plant sterols to ‘actively reduce cholesterol’ until one day I read the label where it showed how it sequestered cholesterol in the gut, and I had that light bulb moment – but most cholesterol is produced by the liver on the other side of the gut wall!
For myself I especially enjoyed the chapters by:
Chapter 9, Stephanie Seneff, where I learned something not in mind before about taurine & sulphate. Also the section about the body electric that deserves more work & thought. As the biochemistry interests me a lot I will read this chapter again checking through some of the references.
Chapter 10, Carlos Montiero, where lactic acidosis, that changes membrane potential and thus sodium/potassium ion balance, is tied to more causes than I would have imagined. As in chapter 9 we are reminded of the mutual feedback of many biochemical processes. The chapter title does say stress as a cause and there is a discussion of hemodynamic shear stress that I think must be pertinent to the carotid artery & stroke in people who do suddenly take up strenuous exercise. The chapter ends with notes on the relationship of vascular disease to other diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Chapter12, Malcolm Kendrick, where our own dear doctor tells us not to miss the wood for the trees. I enjoyed this well written chapter and had never wondered why we did not hear of pulmonary artery plaque. I liked especially the comparison with a skin lesion. Starting with this simple mechanical cause of endothelial damage we can then sensibly discuss what factors make the arteries resistant to the damage and what factors promote rapid healing. I have taken vitamin C & D3 supplements for a long time and it seems to me they will help by supporting connective tissue development and keeping cells well stuck together. It is also noted that statins promote progenitor endothelial cells and in that way will help with sealing plaque, but …
Chapter 13, Paul Rosch, Luca Mascitelli, Mark Goldstein, where we note again that the statins promote progenitor endothelial cell generation, yet those extra cells may promote tumour growth, and that there is a correlation with aggressive forms of breast cancer. The whole chapter shows how a partial picture can be very misleading, as we suspect in many statin studies. Sometimes the pro of a drug may be fully cancelled by the con, which leads us on to –
Chapter 15, Michel de Lorgeril, Mikael Rabaeus, a thorough expose of statin clinical trials. I read the Cochrane review “statins & cardiovascular disease” when it came out, and even then I thought the effect seemed very small, and this chapter convinces me that in general the pro and con cancel out and that it could be that the contra effects are the most significant for most people. If you want the flavour of the matter you need only a paragraph on page 306 about the MIRACL trial (even trial names are made up to deceive); the trial showed no benefit in using atorvastatin for secondary prevention, yet is presented as unequivocal evidence that it is imperative to prescribe atorvastatin or some statin for secondary recurrence. Of course the investigators used smoke and mirrors to hide the reality.
Chapter 16, Duane Graveline, where an MD is himself conned for a while. I may have missed something and I have not followed up all references, but I want to know the detailed mechanism for this transient global amnesia, what switches on and off, especially those short, seconds long transients that he postulates.
I do not single out these chapters as superior to others, just that I learned something extra from them.
A useful tip for the authors would be to use a spell checker, though not every wrong word was a simple typo, and to use find/replace to turn acronyms into full text for the benefit of the non-specialist in their field of study. Alternatively, there could be an index of acronyms as although not too much of a problem sometimes I found myself stuck on what an XYZ meant and had to flip back through the text to check.
I am usually intolerant of spelling and grammatical mistakes, but in the case of these types of books I can put up with it. One reason is to prevent plagiarism (mainstream publishers use deliberate errors as a means of detection), another reason is I am grateful for the efforts of the authors in trying to help with those who will listen, in showing up the vested interests who would mislead us for the sake of money. The authors have put in this effort with little hope of a financial return for their time. This is not a critisism of your point Robert, which I understand and I definitely expect of posters on forums, where the efforts are minimal, but the careless and laziness seems to rule. (I also make the mistakes).
The petition supporting Gary Fettke is now 7,138 with 58 supporters. If any who haven’t, could make a donation, change.org could show it more widely.
Here’s the link again:
https://www.change.org/p/dr-andrew-mulcahy-chair-stop-ahpra-from-gagging-gary-fettke?utm_medium=email&utm_source=promoted&utm_campaign=sponsorship_fulfillment&tk=myWJjyNnLz2o8byHoYD2q8Yh3n8Fg3rQtERas2DwA5A
Can the low carb method espoused here and on other low carb websites prevent and reverse heart disease. I read enough on what causes heart disease, but virtually nothing on stopping its prevention or causing its reversal. Is there any research that proves a low carb, moderate protein and high fat diet erases angina and other existing heart conditions. I think not.
I think not either. Not yet, anyway.