Cholesterol Problems Archives

About fat and heart disease

I simply copied the following from another forum.
--------------------------------------
Even as the American medical profession (in its new cholesterol guidelines published in the May 16, 2001 issue of JAMA) has recently suggested cholesterol guidelines that would result in 1/3-1/2 of the American public being put on statin drugs, the research is steadily mounting that the entire structure on which this theory is based is groundless. Thus, as an example of recent research which is quite explicitly confrontational on this point, see:

1: Exp Mol Pathol 2001 Apr;70(2):103-19
Coronary heart disease, hypercholesterolemia, and atherosclerosis. I. False premises.
Stehbens WE.
Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Wellington School of Medicine, Wellington, New Zealand.

Lipid-rich caseous debris of advanced lesions stimulated interest in the role of cholesterol and lipids in atherosclerosis. Lipid-containing arterial lesions in
cholesterol-overfed animals (cholesterolosis) and xanthomatous vascular lesions in subjects with familial hypercholesterolemia were then misrepresented as being
atherosclerotic and led to the development of the hypercholesterolemic/lipid hypothesis. It is untenable that cholesterol, an essential multifunctional metabolite, is pathogenic at all blood levels and hypercholesterolemia is not prerequisite for human or experimental atherosclerosis. Serum cholesterol levels display a poor correlation with atherosclerosis at autopsy and with unreliable national coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality in each sex. Atherosclerosis topography and its iatrogenic production in humans and experimentally in herbivores by hemodynamic means both support a biomechanical causation and preclude causality by any circulating humoral factor. CHD, not a specific disease, is a nonspecific complication of many diseases including atherosclerosis and cannot be equated with coronary atherosclerosis due to differences in pathology and pathogenesis. Thus, extrapolations from CHD risk factors or correlations with fallacious vital statistics to atherosclerosis are invalid. It follows that the hypercholesterolemic/lipid hypothesis evolving from
false premises, misuse of CHD, scientific isrepresentation, and fallacious data has no legitimate basis.
Copyright 2001 Academic Press.
Publication Types:
Review
Review, Academic
PMID: 11263954

and:

1: Exp Mol Pathol 2001 Apr;70(2):120-39
Coronary heart disease, hypercholesterolemia, and atherosclerosis. II. Misrepresented data.
Stehbens WE.
Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, Wellington School of Medicine,
Wellington, New Zealand.

Early development of the hypercholesterolemic/lipid hypothesis of atherosclerosis was based on false premises including fallacious national mortality rates and misrepresentation of the vascular lesions in cholesterol-overfed animals and monogenic hypercholesterolemias (MH).
Nonspecific coronary heart disease (CHD) was nappropriately used as a surrogate of atherosclerosis, unmeasured and unseen. Causality was assumed and implied by classifying statistical correlates of CHD as atherogenic risk factors. These faults were compounded by methodological errors, pooling of all causes of CHD, a large clinical diagnostic error, biased age selection of cohorts leading to
confounding by age and MH, and emphasis on population and cohort mean values which conceal heterogeneity within cohorts and are inapplicable to individuals.
Overzealous investigators neglected to review the premises and relevant pathology on which the hypothesis was based or to reconcile valid criticisms, inconsistencies, and invalidation of CHD epidemiology by pathological,
experimental, and iatrogenic evidence. Statistical data, pertaining to CHD but with no scientific applicability to atherosclerosis, progressively imparted to readers a misleading perception of the relationship of serum cholesterol to CHD.
Concurrently the statistical serum cholesterol range was unjustifiably abandoned. The evidence establishes that the lipid hypothesis of atherosclerosis lacks scientific basis. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.
Publication Types:
Review
Review, Academic
PMID: 11263955

And then there is the website of Uffe Ravnskov (92 medline cites) which conveniently summarizes his research to the same effect: http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

Lastly, an interesting curiosity from an Australian website dedicated to the work of a Polish doctor who appears to have had some rather stunning treatment successes with a very low carbohydrate diet which appears to derive about 2/3 of its calories from fat and not just any old fat, but saturated fat of the animal variety. For this see: http://members.optushome.com.au/bartim/

Not being particularly conspiracy-minded by nature, I do begin to wonder what little game is being played here by the U.S. medical profession (together with those other selfless do-gooders, the drug companies) with their high carb diets and consistent attacking of cholesterol and fat. After all, a healthy patient is a useless patient.

Re: About fat and heart disease (Hoax or heal?) Archive in cholesterol.