Thought I'd give you an update on Sweet Jane's cholesterol conundrum, which you may recall from this post. Apparently, she has emerged victorious from her battle with unsatisfying LDL levels with a little help from her new friend - Lipitor. From her update:
Wow. That's a whole lotta articles to look forward to.The low-dose statin I’d been taking did the trick. After four months of taking 10 mg a day of Lipitor, my total cholesterol went from 248 to 159. The bad cholesterol, or LDL, went from 171 to 84. My good cholesterol also went up slightly. My ratio of total cholesterol to good cholesterol has me living forever!
What better to commemorate this momentous occasion than a talk by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, given to the Leeds Local Medical Community of the British Medical Association, about why cholesterol does not cause heart disease? Links to the videos follow (and include references to studies, etc), but I'll give you a sampler of my favorite bits:
- European countries with the highest level of fat consumption have the lowest incidence of heart disease.
- The incidence of heart disease in European countries with the highest saturated fat consumption are 1/7th that of countries with the lowest saturated fat consumption.
- A 1992 study (pre-statin era) of one million people found that those with the lowest cholesterol had the highest mortality rates.
- In women over 50 (ahem, Jane Brody, ahem), low cholesterol is SIGNIFICANTLY associated with increased all-cause mortality, and especially with cancer, liver dieases and mental diseases (cough, Jane Brody, cough).
- People who maintain a low cholesterol level for twenty years have the worst outlook for all-cause mortality.
- Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (genetically high cholesterol levels) does not cause heart disease.
- Statin trials are mostly crap (I am paraphrasing).
- Heart disease is a process, and stress plays a major role, particularly in displaced population clusters (Australian Aborigines, etc)
The videos:
Part One - Cholesterol
Part Two - Familial Hypercholesterolaemia
Part Three - About Statins
Part Four - What Causes Heart Disease?
Part Five - Populations
4 comments:
Amen!
My cholesterol profile isn't so much different than Jane's, though my total is higher and my "good" markers are better because I don't eat carbs like she does and I eat a lot of saturated fat. But unlike Jane, I'm not only only *not worried*, I'm pleased, because low cholesterol is the last thing I want.
I got the circled LDL on the lab report at my last dr. visit. I explained that I have looked into the cholesterol issue and wasn't concerned. He continued to say that LDL was an important biomarker. So, I said, my HDL is 68, my triglycerides are 56, all my ratios (total to HDL and HDL to trigl) are better than excellent. I already know from independent testing on my own that my VLDL is the large, fluffy (good kind) not the small, dense kind (bad - from excess carbs) because your lab doesn't give VLDL results, so if you want to look further I'll let you draw some more blood and run more tests for c-reactive protein and homocysteine and anything else that might give you insight into my health. But I'm not worried about the total chol or the LDL, nor will I take LDL lowering medication. He moved on to more important things.
Great to see you posting. It's a pity about poor Jane Brody, though. She's clinging to the edge of her flat earth to the end, I fear.
LOL @ the flat earth thing :)
Those are some great references, thanks!
When that whole scandal first broke, all I could think was, what's so bad about total cholesterol just a little over 200?
My favorite part of the original article was where she starts out with slightly elevated cholesterol, lowers her intake of fats, gets more elevated cholesterol, further lowers her intake of fats and cuts red meat completely out of her diet, and her cholesterol goes through the roof.
From this she concludes, "Take drugs." From this a sane impartial observer might conclude, "Lowering fat intake raises cholesterol."
What's that old definition of insanity? Trying the same thing and expecting different results?
The truth is that NO woman should ever be given Lipitor or any other statin drug for elevated cholesterol.
There are no statin trials with even the slightest hint of a mortality benefit in women and women should be told so.
In other words, statin drugs don’t work for women.
To read more: Just Say No to Statins
Jeffrey Dach MD
my web site
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