Cholesterol Theory - Fatally Cracked

September 9, 2008 // No Comments »

As many of you may know I have a particular interest in the Cholesterol Theory of heart disease and this article came across my desk  today and i thought it so important that i just had to post it. The unerlying premise that Cholesterol and coronary heart disease are linked is clearly coming under increasing scrutiny and may well be not only disproved but blown out of the water - where does that leave the pharmaceutical companies????

September 8, 2008

Egg Study Puts Cracks in Anti-Cholesterol Claims
Results undermine the never-proven hypothesis that diets high in cholesterol and saturated fat promote cardiovascular disease
by Craig Weatherby

A new study from Britain further undermines a decades-old medical myth regarding the role of dietary cholesterol in cardiovascular disease.

And these findings add to fast-deepening doubts surrounding the broader, near century-old “lipid hypothesis” of heart disease, which is reflected in public health policies, including the USDA Food Guide Pyramid.

This increasingly discredited hypothesis holds that “excess” dietary saturated fat and cholesterol – and resulting rises in blood cholesterol and lipid (fat) levels – are major contributing factors to cardiovascular disease (atherosclerosis) and resulting coronary heart disease.

Key Points UK study finds that two eggs a day did not raise cholesterol levels in overweight dieters. Study affirms prior findings that dietary cholesterol does not cause cardiovascular disease. The idea that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease is increasingly discredited by the evidence.

Atherosclerosis – which is the chief defining characteristic of cardiovascular disease – is the medical term for arteries lined with inflamed, unstable, plaque.

This inflammatory condition is the leading cause of heart attacks, stroke, congestive heart failure and the arrhythmias that induce sudden cardiac death.

(For a summary of the relationships and distinctions between inflammation, cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, and coronary heart disease, see our accompanying article, “What is Heart Disease, Exactly?”.)

Incredibly, given the decades-old public health advice to avoid saturated fat and cholesterol – and the several billion dollars spent annually on cholesterol-lowering drugs – the evidence supporting the lipid hypothesis of heart disease is astonishingly weak.

We covered the declining credibility of the lipid hypothesis of cardiovascular disease earlier this year: see “Cholesterol Fiasco Undermines Accepted Theory”, which contains links to several eye-opening articles in The New York Times and The Boston Globe.

Eggs and heart disease: The overdue exoneration of a scapegoat

Healthy people and heart patients alike have routinely been advised to strictly limit intake of eggs … or avoid egg yolks, where most of their fat and cholesterol reside (along with their valuable vitamin A and D).

Omega-3-enriched eggs: Making a good food better Advice to avoid eggs is misguided, given their blamelessness with regard to heart disease, and the fact that each egg provides about 10 percent of the recommended daily intake of protein and vitamin A. And anti-egg advice is especially wrong-headed now that most supermarkets offer eggs high in omega-3 fatty acids, which are proven to enhance heart health. Eggs high in omega-3s were the norm before competitive pressures caused most farmers to confine their hens in cages and feed them grains such as corn, which are low in omega-3s and high in pro-inflammatory omega-6s. Today, it’s easy to find omega-3-enriched eggs, which come either from “free-range” hens raised on pasture or, more commonly, from hens raised on grain-based feed fortified with fish meal.

This advice flowed from the lipid hypothesis of heart disease, which holds that foods high in cholesterol and saturated fat – such as egg yolks – promote cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, and resulting coronary heart disease.

Yet, misguided medical advice was never supported by a persuasive preponderance of evidence.

Indeed, with the exception of people diagnosed with diabetes – among whom high egg intake is associated with increased heart risks – none of the large epidemiological studies that looked for links between eggs and coronary heart disease or stroke have found any.

As early as 1982, researchers who examined data from the famous Framingham Heart Study found no association between eggs and heart disease: “It is concluded that … differences in egg consumption were unrelated to blood cholesterol level or to coronary heart disease incidence.” (Kritchevsky SB et al. 1982)

Then, researchers from Harvard School of Public health analyzed diet and health data from two of the largest, best-controlled epidemiological studies ever conducted: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-1994) and the Nurses’ Health Study (1980-1994), which together involved 37,851 male physicians and 80,082 female nurses.

The Harvard team found no evidence that eggs were risky: “These findings suggest that consumption of up to 1 egg per day is unlikely to have substantial overall impact on the risk of CHD [coronary heart disease] or stroke among healthy men and women.” (Hu FB et al. 1999)

(The only exception was diagnosed diabetics, among whom a higher intake of eggs was associated with greater risk of developing heart disease. This could simply reflect the facts that diabetics are more prone to developing coronary heart disease, and that diets high in fat are associated with higher risk of CHD.)

And a study in Japan yielded more evidence exonerating eggs as risk factors for developing coronary heart disease: “In conclusion, eating eggs more frequently, up to almost daily, was not associated with an increase in CHD [coronary heart disease] incidence for middle-aged Japanese men and women.” (Nakamura Y et al. 2006)

Last year, researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey came to similar conclusions after analyzing diet and health data from 9,734 adults aged 25 to 74. The title of their publication summarized their exculpatory findings: “Regular egg consumption does not increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases.” (Qureshi AI et al. 2007)

Die-hard defenders of the lipid hypothesis of heart disease might say that while epidemiological studies like these reveal associations, they cannot provide final proof of a hypothesis regarding diet and disease.

However, the results of a British clinical trial should help end the debate over heart health and eggs.

British study exonerates eggs

A research team from the University of Surrey recruited 45 overweight but otherwise healthy volunteers, and divided them into two groups (Harman NL et al. 2008).

• Group A (egg group) followed a low-calorie diet that included two eggs per day for 12 weeks.
• Group B (control group) followed the same low-calorie diet for 12 weeks, but ate no eggs.

The people in both groups lost 7- 9 lbs (3 to 4 kg) and their average levels of blood cholesterol fell.

Their blood cholesterol levels were measured at six weeks and 12 weeks, and both groups showed either unchanged or reduced cholesterol levels … particularly in their LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.

This finding came despite the egg group increasing their dietary cholesterol intake to around four times that of the control group.

As the authors concluded, “An increased intake of dietary cholesterol from two eggs a day does not increase total … or LDL cholesterol when accompanied by moderate weight loss. These findings suggest that cholesterol-rich foods should not be excluded from dietary advice to lose weight on account of an unfavorable influence on … LDL cholesterol.” (Harman NL et al. 2008)

Team leader Bruce Griffin, Ph.D., RPHNutr summarized their findings in a press release: “We have shown that when two eggs a day are eaten by people who are actively losing weight on a calorie-restricted diet, blood cholesterol can still be reduced.”

And Dr. Griffin’s companion comment focused on the heart of the matter: “There is no convincing evidence to link an increased intake of dietary cholesterol or eggs with coronary heart disease through raised blood cholesterol.”

In fact, saturated fat – whose primary dietary sources among Americans are red meats, butter, and foods made with butter – is more responsible for raising blood cholesterol than cholesterol-rich foods, such as eggs.

However, this does not mean that saturated fat is a significant villain, either.

The available evidence shows that diets high in saturated fat are not linked much more closely to risk of heart disease than are diets high in total fat, polyunsaturated fats, or monounsaturated fats. The main exception is that younger people’s risk is exacerbated more by high fat intake. (Artaud-Wild SM et al. 1993; Esrey KL et al. 1996; Jakobsen MU et al. 2004; Xu J et al. 2006; Volk MG 2007)

Sadly, many doctors remain unaware that the lipid hypothesis of heart disease rests on a foundation of sand, with numerous studies proving that diets high saturated fat and cholesterol are not inherently unhealthful.

Instead, it is a lack of plant foods and exercise and an excess of refined carbohydrates (i.e., white flour products) that can make fatty diets dangerous. These contextual differences explain why people in Finland and France have widely divergent rates of heart disease despite having similar intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol (Volk MG 2007).

In other words, it appears safe to eat reasonable amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol as long as your diet meets the basic criteria outlined in our accompanying article, “What is Heart Disease, Exactly?”

Sources

• Artaud-Wild SM, Connor SL, Sexton G, Connor WE. Differences in coronary mortality can be explained by differences in cholesterol and saturated fat intakes in 40 countries but not in France and Finland. A paradox. Circulation. 1993 Dec;88(6):2771-9.
• Dawber TR, Nickerson RJ, Brand FN, Pool J. Eggs, serum cholesterol, and coronary heart disease. Am J Clin Nutr 1982;36:617-25.
• Dawber TR, Nickerson RJ, Brand FN, Pool J. Eggs, serum cholesterol, and coronary heart disease. Am J Clin Nutr. 1982 Oct;36(4):617-25.
• Esrey KL, Joseph L, Grover SA. Relationship between dietary intake and coronary heart disease mortality: lipid research clinics prevalence follow-up study. J Clin Epidemiol. 1996 Feb;49(2):211-6.
• Gramenzi A, Gentile A, Fasoli M, Negri E, Parazzini F, La Vecchia C. Association between certain foods and risk of acute myocardial infarction in women. BMJ 1990;300:771-3.
• Harman NL, Leeds AR, Griffin BA. Increased dietary cholesterol does not increase plasma low density lipoprotein when accompanied by an energy-restricted diet and weight loss. Eur J Nutr. 2008 Sep;47(6):287-93. Epub 2008 Aug 26.
• Hu FB, Stampfer MJ, Rimm EB, Manson JE, Ascherio A, Colditz GA, Rosner BA, Spiegelman D, Speizer FE, Sacks FM, Hennekens CH, Willett WC. A prospective study of egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease in men and women. JAMA. 1999 Apr 21;281(15):1387-94.
• Jakobsen MU, Overvad K, Dyerberg J, Schroll M, Heitmann BL. Dietary fat and risk of coronary heart disease: possible effect modification by gender and age. Am J Epidemiol. 2004 Jul 15;160(2):141-9.
• Kritchevsky SB, Kritchevsky D. Egg consumption and coronary heart disease: an epidemiologic overview. J Am Coll Nutr. 2000 Oct;19(5 Suppl):549S-555S. Review.
• Lacombe CR, Corraze GR, Nibbelink MM, Boulze D, Douste-Blazy P, Camare R. Effects of a low-energy diet associated with egg supplementation on plasma cholesterol and lipoprotein levels in normal subjects: results of a cross-over study. Br J Nutr. 1986 Nov;56(3):561-75.
• Nakamura Y, Iso H, Kita Y, Ueshima H, Okada K, Konishi M, Inoue M, Tsugane S. Egg consumption, serum total cholesterol concentrations and coronary heart disease incidence: Japan Public Health Center-based prospective study. Br J Nutr. 2006 Nov;96(5):921-8.
• Qureshi AI, Suri FK, Ahmed S, Nasar A, Divani AA, Kirmani JF. Regular egg consumption does not increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases. Med Sci Monit. 2007 Jan;13(1):CR1-8. Epub 2006 Dec 18.
• Volk MG. An examination of the evidence supporting the association of dietary cholesterol and saturated fats with serum cholesterol and development of coronary heart disease. Altern Med Rev. 2007 Sep;12(3):228-45. Review.

Xu J, Eilat-Adar S, Loria C, Goldbourt U, Howard BV, Fabsitz RR, Zephier EM, Mattil C, Lee ET. Dietary fat intake and risk of coronary heart disease: the Strong Heart Study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Oct;84(4):894-902.

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Posted in Drugs, Omega 3, cholesterol, diet, food, heart, medicine, pharmaceutical drugs

Little or No Evidence Supports Conventional Medical Treatments

June 6, 2008 // No Comments »

I saw this article and couldn’t help echoing its sentiments.

by Barbara L. Minton (see all articles by this author)

(NaturalNews) Do you ever get the feeling that your doctor doesn’t know what he’s doing? Well, you are probably right. There is little or no evidence that today’s $2 trillion-dollar medical system works any better than various other alternatives. Whether you have diabetes, heart trouble, back pain or cancer, this judgment applies. If you are contemplating surgery, you should know that the orthodox disease establishment doctors have little clue about the success rates for the procedures they endorse.

Dr. David Eddy, a consultant for healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente and leader in the development of clinical evidenced based guidelines admits that the medical profession does not know what its doing, according to an article published by Alan Stang. Even today, with a high-tech health-care system that costs the nation so much money, there is little or no evidence that many widely used treatments and procedures actually work.

Eighty-five percent of what doctors do is not backed by hard evidence, which presumably means that only fifteen percent is. “Doctors dangerously over treat patients, because they get paid to treat; they don’t get paid not to treat,” claims Stang.

A hundred and fifty years ago, Ignaz Semmelweis claimed that his fellow physicians were killing women delivering babies in Vienna’s hospitals. Women were so terrified of hospitals that they considered a hospital stay the same as a death sentence. Their families had to bring them there by force because the women would try to escape. Semmelweis suspected that the reason for the deaths was that doctors were going from surgery to surgery without washing their hands. When he demanded that they scrub and sterilize their hands, the death rate dropped dramatically.

Although you would suspect that modern practitioners certainly wash their hands between patients, especially between surgeries, you would be wrong. Eighty percent of hospital infections happen today because doctors don’t wash their hands, resulting in deaths of thousands of people and costs of over a billion dollars a year. For instance, more than one-quarter of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s doctors don’t wash, because proper washing takes time and costs them money they would otherwise be making, according to an article in Business Week that interviewed some of the nation’s leading doctors.

According to these doctors, some of their colleagues are killing and robbing thousands of Americans a year. And these unindicted felons are the same critics calling for the power of the government to raid health food stores and throw so-called “alternative” practitioners into jail. These are also the same moral miscreants who use government propaganda to warn disease victims to reject any other treatment and therapy except theirs. They are the ones in collusion with the pharmaceutical companies who are trying to ban nutritional supplements with Codex Alimentarius. They point with their unwashed hands at anyone who dares to contradict them.

Stang recalls the story of Abraham Cherrix who had Hodgkin’s disease. The doctors told him to take chemotherapy so he did. It failed and the cancer returned. The chemo had left Abraham so weak that he couldn’t walk. He didn’t want to do it again, wanting instead to try “alternative” treatments to restore his immune system. Doctors used the courts to force him to again take the same chemotherapy that had failed him and left him so weak.

Abraham’s dad asked the social worker, “What will you do with my little boy? Will you take him somewhere and strap him down and put duct tape on his mouth and pump him full of this stuff if he doesn’t want it?” The social worker replied, “No, I will come to your house with a uniformed officer, and I will take your son by force if he resists. And I will take him to somebody else who will do that.” As the result of the huge public outrage over this case, Abraham finally won and was returned to his parent’s custody.

How could this have happened? The disease establishment is willing to do anything to protect and maintain its multi-billion dollar control of the people. Establishment medicine as practiced in the U.S. is monopoly medicine. Any threat to that monopoly is taken seriously. The four big players in monopoly medicine are the government, the AMA (American Medical Association), the drug companies, and the medical schools.

No matter how beneficial prevention modalities and alternative treatment modalities are to the people, they must be concealed, controlled, and done away with. There is a kind of psychic disconnect practiced by the establishment mentalities that want to do away with the means to prevent and treat conditions that may eventually threaten their own lives.

As the drug companies and politicians try to line us up for forced vaccinations and treatments, it’s good to remember that forced medical treatment was one of the main principles of Nazism. The Holocaust did not begin with the extermination of Jewish people. It ended with them.

The Holocaust began with the doctors when Hitler was still in jail during the Weimar Republic established after World War I. The Allies had promised Germany there would not be a punitive peace. Of course they lied and ended up imposing a ruinous war debt at the Versailles Conference. When Germany could not pay, the doctors decided to do their patriotic duty by eliminating “useless eaters”. They began with handicapped children and worked their way to criminals and beyond. Since doctors were running the program, the public swallowed it as just being “humane”. Only years later was this program known as the Holocaust, which many people today wrongly believe only exterminated the Jewish.

The fact that Business Week was able to publish much of this information in their cover story suggests that the disease establishment may be losing some of its control. But like many large beasts, monopoly medicine is probably more dangerous in its death throws.

Sources:

Author not noted, “Medical Guesswork”, Business Week, May 29, 2006.

Stang, Alan, “Today’s American Medicine: The Cure,” (www.AlanStang.com)

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Posted in Drugs, alternative, breast cancer, cancer, diabetes, health, medicine, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes

Cholesterol - lowering with drugs is ineffective

March 6, 2008 // No Comments »

Hey - seems as if my drift on Cholesterol is right on cue. To hear that drug companies in the advertisements are now saying that with small print like this

“In a large clinical study, 3 percent of patients taking a sugar pill or placebo had a heart attack
compared to 2 percent of patients taking Lipitor.”
- HOW DUMB do you have to get to realise that there is no real benefit

 

It begs the question “why would anyone take a drug like this when it improves results by just 1% over the placebo” - as a scientis that is surely questionable in terms of significance. In terms of money for the drug company its huge - how may read the fine print (if its there at all). We have been using food to reduce cholesterol for over 8 years and guess what it works.

e mail me

Healthy Mentors - here to help you
Trehalose - the safe sugar
Phil Hughes - Homeopath

 

 

Last month, I told you about the latest statin shockwave involving Vytorin and the failing grade it received in a recent study evaluating its effectiveness (2/21/08 eTip, subject line: “New recruits”). Not surprisingly, attention quickly shifted to other statins, and the question on the forefront of everyone’s mind — not to mention the cover of Business Week magazine — was “Do cholesterol drugs do any good?”

Now, you read the eTips three times a week, so I’m guessing chances are good that you’re as skeptical as Dr. Wright and I are about patent medications. But, I’ve got to say, the answer to the statin question even surprised me. Thanks to Dr. Wright, I’ve known for years that statins aren’t the miracle workers that Big Pharma makes them out to be. But I had no idea just how inflated that claim really is.

To get a better sense of statins’ effectiveness you have to look beyond the percentages the drug ads are always spouting out. The print ads for the drug claim that it helps reduce heart attack risk by 36 percent. But follow the asterisk next to that number down to the fine print at the bottom of the page and things get a whole lot less impressive. There it says “In a large clinical study, 3 percent of patients taking a sugar pill or placebo had a heart attack compared to 2 percent of patients taking Lipitor.”

(more…)

Posted in Drugs, cholesterol, health, heart