Do Low Cholesterol Levels Cause Cancer?

Do Low Cholesterol Levels Cause Cancer?

March 26, 2012 Dr. Malcolm Kendrick

We live in a world where a high cholesterol is now considered to be virtually the most terrible and dangerous thing known to man. Everything possible must be done to bring the level down, or else you are going to die of a stroke or heart attack.

The anti-cholesterol propaganda has been so successful that six million people in the UK now take statins each and every day to reduce their risk of heart disease. Something which, I strongly believe, future generations will look back on in amazement. ‘Did they not know that cholesterol is essential for human health….what on earth did they think they were doing?’

Can it really be true that a chemical compound, so important that the liver synthesises at least five times as much as you consume in food, can be disastrous to our health. All cell membranes need it, our brains need it, almost all of our hormones are made out of it, and it is used to make vitamin D in our skin. It has always seemed to me that having too little cholesterol is just as likely to be damaging as having too much – probably more so.

One area I have particular concerns about is cancer. For many years it has been noticed that people with low cholesterol levels are more likely to die of cancer. This has been a consistent finding, for many years, from studies done all around the world^1-9.

The statin ‘zealots,’ as I shall call them, are well aware of the association between low cholesterol and cancer, and they have gone out of their way to dismiss the possibility that low cholesterol may cause cancer.

The primary argument they have used is known as reverse causality. This ‘reverse-causality’ hypothesis suggests that depressed LDL-cholesterol levels are the result of subclinical cancer (not the other way round). This idea has been put forward with absolutely no evidence to support it. Despite this, it has been accepted without question.

It is true that if you have advanced cancer, your cholesterol levels fall. This happens for a number of interconnected reasons, including the fact that large tumours use a lot of cholesterol to divide and grow.

However, the idea that a cancer so small, that it cannot not yet be detected, is using up so much cholesterol that it lowers the total cholesterol level throughout the body, is stretching the boundaries of possibility. I would say breaking the bounds of possibility.

The second argument put forward, which is not really an argument, is the ‘how can a low cholesterol level cause cancer anyway.’ It should always be remembered that a great deal of medical research consists of bumping into effects, without understanding how it could happen in the first place – see under penicillin. See more recently under aspirin protecting against cancer. A finding as yet, without any clearly defined mechanism of action.

In short, just because you can’t easily see a mechanism of action, does not mean that it doesn’t exist. In fact, several possible ways that cholesterol, or to be more accurate lipoproteins, could protect against cancer have been researched in some detail¹⁰.

Anyway, as I have always known must happen, the ‘reverse causality’ hypothesis has finally been laid to rest. A recent analysis of the longest running heart disease research project in the world (the Framingham Study) has shown that low cholesterol levels predate cancer diagnosis by many, many, years. And, to quote:

“Based on these data, it would suggest that lower cholesterol predated the development of cancer by quite a long time. Now, that doesn’t necessarily speak to [low cholesterol] causing the cancer; it could have been related to something else altogether, but it’s not supportive of the hypothesis that cancer caused the low levels of LDL cholesterol. We don’t know why it predates cancer, but it would be premature to attribute it to the cancer itself.” ¹¹

In short, it must now be accepted that cancer doesn’t cause low cholesterol levels. Which leaves the possibility that low cholesterol levels might cause cancer. This, inevitably, leads to the next question. If low levels of cholesterol precede cancer, can statins cause cancer?

The evidence is not conclusive, and I would not claim that it was. But there have been some significant warning signs from statin studies. Just to mention three. In the CARE trial¹², twelve women in the statin group had breast cancer at follow up, compared on only one in the placebo group. In the PROSPER study¹³ there were forty six more cases of cancer in the statin group than the placebo group.

Possibly the most worrying figures come from a Japanese study which looked at nearly fifty thousand people taking statins over six years. They found that the number of cancer deaths was more than three times higher in patients whose total cholesterol was less than 4.0mmol/l at follow-up, compared with those whose cholesterol was normal or high:

‘The patients with an exceptionally low TC (total cholesterol) concentration, the so-called ‘hyper-responders’ to simvastatin, had a higher relative risk of death from malignancy than in the other patient groups.’

The authors then went on to warn:
‘Malignancy was the most prevalent cause of death. The health of patients should be monitored closely when there is a remarkable decrease in TC (cholesterol) and LDL-C (Low Density Lipoprotein ‘bad cholesterol’) concentrations with low-dose statin.’¹⁴

This is not proof of causation, but these are warning signs. Armed with the Framingham data, I believe that the medical profession has to face up to the painful reality that low cholesterol levels could be a cause of cancer, and this needs to be properly researched. We must remember that it took Richard Peto more than thirty years to prove that smoking caused lung cancer, and no statin trial has lasted longer than six.

1. Williams RR, Sorlie PD, Feinleib M, McNamara PM, Kannel WB, Dawber TR. Cancer incidence by levels of cholesterol. JAMA 1981; 245:247–52.
2. Salmond CE, Beaglehole R, Prior IA. Are low cholesterol lvalues associated with excess mortality? BMJ 1985;290:422–4.
3. Schatzkin A, Hoover RN, Taylor PR, Ziegler RG, Carter CL,Larson DB, et al. Serum cholesterol and cancer inthe NHANES I epidemiologic followup study. NationalHealth and Nutrition Examination Survey. Lancet 1987;2:298–301.
4. To¨rnberg SA, Holm LE, Carstensen JM, Eklund GA. Cancer
incidence and cancer mortality in relation to serum cholesterol. J Natl Cancer Inst 1989; 81:1917–21.
5. Isles CG, Hole DJ, Gillis CR, Hawthorne VM, Lever AF.Plasma cholesterol, coronary heart disease, and cancer inthe Renfrew and Paisley survey. BMJ 1989; 298:920–4.
6. Kreger BE, Anderson KM, Schatzkin A, Splansky GL. Serum cholesterol level, body mass index, and the risk of coloncancer. The Framingham Study. Cancer 1992; 70:1038–43.
7. Schuit AJ, Van Dijk CE, Dekker JM, Schouten EG, Kok FJ.Inverse association between serum total cholesterol andcancer mortality in Dutch civil servants. Am J Epidemiol1993; 137:966–76.
8. Chang AK, Barrett-Connor E, Edelstein S. Low plasma cholesterol predicts an increased risk of lung cancer in elderlywomen. Prev Med 1995; 24:557–62.
9. Steenland K, Nowlin S, Palu S. Cancer incidencein the National Health and Nutrition Survey I. Follow-updata: diabetes, cholesterol, pulse and physical activity.Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1995; 4:807–11
10: http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/12/08/qjmed.hcr243.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=kZGZxqVjYWEOtoc
11: http://www.theheart.org/article/1375049.do?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=20120325_ACC_dimanche_2
12: Sacks FM, Pfeffer MA, Moye LA, Rouleau JL, Rutherford JD,Cole TG, et al. Effect of pravastatin on cardiovascular eventsin women after myocardial infarction: the cholesterol and recurrent events (CARE) trial. N Engl J Med 1996;335:1001–9
13: Shepherd J, Blauw GJ, Murphy MB, Bollen EL, Buckley BM,Cobbe SM, et al. Pravastatin in elderly individuals at risk ofvascular disease (PROSPER): a randomised controlled trial.Lancet 2002; 360:1623–30.
14: . Matsuzaki M, Kita T, Mabuchi H, Matsuzawa Y, Nakaya N,Oikawa S, et al. Japan Lipid Intervention Trial. Large scalecohort study of the relationship between serum cholesterol lconcentration and coronary events with low-dose simvastatin therapy in Japanese patients with hypercholesterolemia. Circ J 2002; 66:1087–95.
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Read the complete article here.

Enjoy eating saturated fat but preferably from grass-fed animals.

In an article taken from a talk given by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD at the 29^th Annual Meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in Albuquerque July 19, 2011, he stated

 "Enjoy eating saturated fat but preferably from grass-fed animals."

Read the full article here.

Saturated Fat and Heart Disease

Dwight C. Lundell M.D. has an article at SpaceDoc that reaffirms an important yet under reported fact:

'There never has been any direct evidence that saturated fat caused heart disease or even a mechanism whereby heart disease would happen.'



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Saturated Fat and Heart Disease


by Dwight C. Lundell M.D.

Does the thought of a steak, bacon and eggs, or real milk make you cringe thinking you're instantly clogging up your arteries? How many times have you seen physicians and nutritionists write "artery clogging saturated fats"? For the last 40 years the dietary instructions from governments and other authoritative bodies have told us to avoid all animal fats.

Americans took the message seriously and complied. Average fat consumption decreased, average blood cholesterol levels decreased but their rate of heart disease has continued to rise; the cost of its treatment has continued to rise. Now, in 2011 we have 24 MILLION people diagnosed with diabetes and another 65 million with pre-diabetes and an epidemic of obesity now afflicting over 65% of the population.


The evidence continues to mount that there's no benefit and probable harm from a low fat diet. Two recent examples, the Women's Health Initiative which studied 48,835 women demonstrating no benefit from a low fat diet in terms of heart disease or breast cancer. (Ref 1 ).


The Nurses' Health Study which has followed 90,000 female health professionals, once again demonstrated no reduction in heart disease or cancer, from a low-fat diet. ( Ref 2 ).


Even the famous Framingham study now admits there is no association between dietary fat and heart disease and indeed the association of elevated cholesterol and heart disease is limited to a small segment of the study population. ( Ref 3 ).


The January 2009 American Heart Journal reported that of the 137,000 people admitted to over 500 hospitals in the United States with heart attack, nearly 75% had "normal" LDL cholesterol levels, that is below 130 ( see cholesterol converter for mg / dL to mmol / L conversion ).


The evidence against saturated fat has always been circumstantial. That is, saturated fat was said to elevate blood cholesterol and elevated blood cholesterol was said to cause heart disease therefore saturated fat would cause heart disease. There never has been any direct evidence that saturated fat caused heart disease or even a mechanism whereby heart disease would happen.


Although there are more than a dozen types of saturated fat, humans predominantly consume three; stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid. These three fats make up 95% of the saturated fat in a piece of prime rib, a slice of bacon, a piece of chicken skin, and nearly 70% of that in butter and whole milk.


It is well established that stearic acid has no affect on cholesterol levels. In fact stearic acid is converted in the liver to oleic acid which is monounsaturated like olive oil and said to be healthy. Most scientists now consider stearic acid to be benign or potentially beneficial. Palmitic and lauric acid do raise LDL cholesterol levels, but they also raise HDL cholesterol levels, and therefore may be beneficial.


Still worried about clogging up your arteries? The question reflects how most people today have become conditioned to eliminate fat from their diet for fear of clogging their arteries. With doctors and medical establishments recommending the elimination of saturated fat, nutritionists and other authors repeating the phrase "artery clogging saturated fats" the media certainly follows and we have formed a deep ingrained belief that saturated fat is evil and unhealthy.


In March of 2009, researchers from the U.S. National Cancer Institute reported that those whose diets contained the highest proportion of red or processed meat had a higher overall risk of death and specifically a higher risk of cancer and heart disease than those who ate the least processed or red meat. ( Ref 4 ).


The press had a field day as the news circulated the wires quickly. Here are a few of the headlines:


"Eating red meat linked to early death, study finds"


"Study shows red meat consumption linked to higher risk of dying from cancer, heart disease"


"Death linked to too much red meat"


Dr. Michael R. Eades wrote a brilliant reply to the fault in this study and the media overreaction in a blog titled Meat and Mortality. ( Ref 5 ).


Here is a brief excerpt:


"At the same time that this paper appeared, showing increased red meat consumption to be tied to a slight increased risk of death (and showing that those subjects eating white meat had less risk), a couple of other papers came out in the online pre-publication section of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN), arguably the world's most prestigious nutritional scientific journal.


These two AJCN papers saw the light of day at around the same time as this highly-publicized study on meat and mortality, but demonstrated the opposite results. They got no press coverage whatsoever. Which proves what I've been saying all along: the press is biased against meat in general, and especially against red meat."


I completely agree with Dr. Eades about the media bias and am surprised by authors who should know better and continue to write "artery clogging saturated fats".


The most recent definitive study of all the competent studies regarding saturated fats and heart disease called a meta-analysis and published in the AJCN January 13, 2010 shows that over a 5 to 23 year follow-up of 347,747 subjects, there is no association between the intake of saturated fat and heart disease or stroke.( Ref 6 ).


The bottom line is that there is no connection between the intake of saturated fat and heart disease or stroke. But there is a connection between the currently recommended high carbohydrate diet and heart disease and stroke.


So enjoy bacon and eggs and forgo the oatmeal and bagels, your LDL will come down your HDL will go up, your weight will go down and your satisfaction with your diet will go up. The low fat diet is the worst dietary advice in the last 50 years and it is the proximate cause of our epidemics of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.


Accurate knowledge cannot come from reading abstracts of articles or reporters' interpretation of the abstract.


Dwight C. Lundell M.D.
http://www.thecureforheartdisease.net/
Chief Medical Consultant, Asantae Inc.
Chief Medical Consultant at www.realweight.com


Dr. Lundell's experience in Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery over the last 25 years includes certification by the American Board of Surgery, the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.


Dr. Lundell was a pioneer in off-pump coronary artery bypass or "beating heart" surgery reducing surgical complications and recovery times.


He has served as Chief resident at the University of Arizona and Yale University Hospitals and later served as Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery.


He was one of the founding partners of the Lutheran Heart Hospital which became the second largest Heart hospital in the U.S.


Ref 1. http://www.pcrm.org/health/prevmed/pdfs/modest_diet.pdf


Ref 2. http://www.channing.harvard.edu/nhs/


Ref 3. http://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/


Ref 4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19307518


Ref 5. http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/fast-food/meat-and-mortality/


Ref 6. http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract

Book Review: Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!

From The Health Journal Club comes this book review of the book by that name by Uffe Ravnskov.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Book Review: "Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!"

Uffe Ravnskov, MD PhD

Fat and cholesterol good for your?? Why its preposterous I tell you! And if this wasn't such a serious and important topic it might be worthwhile to spend a good deal of time simply on the reaction of mainstream medicine to Dr. Ravnskov's positions. To point out how this medical doctor, nephrologist and PhD could not get an English language publisher for his first book on the topic, "The Cholesterol Myths" until Sally Fallon in the alternative medicine field published it through her own company. How, despite being literally burned on a Finnish talk show, the original book was in such demand that it was selling often selling for well over 100 dollars for a used copy until the publication of the current book. Even with the publication of "Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You!" which covers and expands upon the material in the first book, used paper back copies of The Cholesterol Myths sell for over twenty dollars and new copies around $40.

The topic of heart disease is a serious one, however, and rather then spend more time on the reaction to these writings it is necessary to try and at least scratch the surface of what Dr. Ranvskov is actually saying. This is not so easy in that the numerous chapters are wide ranging, controversial and generally include some 30 - 70 references a piece. While it has become more fashionable recently to question the cholesterol lowering campaign, to my knowledge, even to the present no one has put together such a well-referenced, well organized and cogent critique of the cholesterol lowering campaign as Dr. Ravnskov. Personally, this was the first book I read which led me to begin to question much of the conventional medical wisdom I had been taught in medical school and beyond. If cholesterol lowering for heart disease may be in error, what other precepts of modern medicine might not be equally idolatrous? I also suspected when I first heard of this book, that despite the author's credentials it would almost certainly be laughably bad, well I was in for a surprise.

While every medical student is taught the results of the vaunted Framingham study which underpins much of the cholesterol lowering campaign, a stance reinforced by unanimity among instructors and peers, as well as a nearly unavoidable multi decade media blitz, Dr. Ravnskov did something I never had, he went back and looked at the relevant medical literature with a critical eye and a fine tooth comb. So for example, one learns that the Framingham study was an exception to more numerous studies at the time which found no association between cholesterol and heart disease. Without going into the compelling detail found in the book, the Framingham study itself, upon examination is shown to have serious methodological flaws which call into question it's conclusions. Similarly, multiple studies since the Framingham study, have also not documented an association between cholesterol levels and heart disease. Once the cholesterol heart disease meme became entrenched, and while not dwelt on by the author, financially profitable, the discrepant findings were ignored or explained away, often with quite convoluted reasoning.

Mainstream medicine, though it knows better, often presents cholesterol as some unmitigated evil which by happenstance exists only to predispose one to heart disease. If it only could be eliminated, there would be no more heart disease. Cholesterol itself though, is not some aberration of physiology, it is present in all membranes and is involved in numerous crucial metabolic pathways including production of steroid hormones among others. Dr. Ravnskov also points out the anti-infective properties specifically of cholesterol in conjunction with low density lipoprotein, LDL cholesterol, and notes numerous other examples of cholesterol's protective effects in disease states. To suppose that there is not the potential for deleterious effects from lowering such a ubiquitous and important molecule as cholesterol makes about as much sense as saying there is no lower healthy boundary for glucose, sodium, aldosterone etc.

Indeed, regulation of cholesterol levels is so important that dietary changes in cholesterol are compensated for by endogenous production of cholesterol by the liver. While this fact is often obliquely acknowledged by physicians Dr. Ravnskov does an excellent job of documenting that diet has zero effect on cholesterol level.

In similar fashion, the author refutes the decades old contention, first popularized by Ancel Keyes that saturated fat plays a significant role in either heart disease or obesity. Considering the enormous efforts undertaken to provide consumers with "low-fat" alternatives to all manner of healthy traditional foods it somehow feels both liberating and subversive to realize the whole low fat edifice is based on a foundation of sand. The unspoken jab in so much of the low fat marketing is that if one doesn't buy their product one is somehow a glutton. How freeing to know that if you like a big slab of grass fed cow butter on your bread you are neither being unhealthy nor any more likely to put on excess weight. Certainly the attempt to restrict dietary fat has failed miserably as a means of decreasing obesity rates. After reviewing the literature, the author concludes that you are no more likely to get fat from eating fat then you are likely to turn green from eating green vegetables.

This review has really barely scratched the surface of this mind bending, meticulous and important work. I could go on for much greater length on this book, however, Dr. Ravnskov has also just released a new work, Ignore the Awkward: How the Cholesterol Myths Are Kept Alive, and I want to give myself time to read and hopefully review that one as well. As I mentioned, heart disease is both a serious and important topic, for those who are interested in their health, it is likely worthwhile to consider the findings of one who has done an honest and exhaustive review of the literature in this area rather than only solely and uncritically accepting the stance of a media campaign for a thirty billion dollar a year industry that says buy our pill or you'll drop dead. While I don't want to overly simplify a complex topic, I suppose if there were one dramatic medical literature based finding brought out in this book that has really stuck with me it is that, on average, elderly people with high cholesterol live longer. Whoda thunk it.

"Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You" is available at Amazon.

Nina Plank

Sorry, but I hadn't heard of Nina Plank until recently. The reason I'm sorry is that from what I've read so far she has a lot to say. There is a couple of ways I make a judgement of someone. Maybe it's not the most thorough methodology but for now I'll stand by it. What I try to do is take a two pronged approach to help me make up my mind. First, listen to what the person has to say, then examine, in as much as is possible, who they are and who they team up with.

Well, Who is Nina Planck? (per her website)

"NINA PLANCK is a food writer, an advocate for traditional foods, an entrepreneur, and the leading American expert on farmers' markets and local food. A champion of small farmers, she grew up on an ecological vegetable farm in Virginia and sold the family vegetables at farmers' markets from age nine. After leaving the farm, Nina was a congressional staffer, a reporter for TIME, and a speechwriter for President Clinton's ambassador to the UK."

I read the piece of hers, and believe there is reason to read more. So here's what she wrote that caught my eye. It's a little long but worth the read.

" Last Gasp of a Failing Theory

If I remember my college philosophy of science course, Thomas Kuhn explained, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) how science lurches forward from one reigning hypothesis (the sun revolves around the earth) to another (the earth revolves around the sun). And what a mess it is, at the crucial moments, as one hypothesis collapses under the weight of new evidence, but before proponents of the new hypothesis have all the facts they need to prove it - or at least to give it the credibility required to make it Top Dog among hypotheses.
 

The lurches are the part I remember best. The calm times before and after - when 'everyone' believes in a geocentric universe or flat earth, and later, when 'everyone' knows how the solar system works, or that the globe is round - are less interesting, I think, than the turbulent periods. Kuhn called the calm times 'normal' science. The bumpy periods, Kuhn told us, were a crucial part of scientific discovery and revolution - the overturning of old ideas, or at least their tweaking. Kuhn called the result of the lurches a 'paradigm shift.
 

'We are amidst such a lurch, I believe, in the study of diet and heart disease. The reigning theory, at least 100 years old, is called the lipid hypothesis. It refers to the idea that dietary fats, and saturated fats in particular, 'clog' arteries with cholesterol (among other things) and cause heart disease and - this is key - premature mortality. Saturated fats - both natural (butter) and man-made (trans fats) - are, therefore, considered dietary villains.
 

The lipid hypothesis has been around since at least 1900, and it was 'proven,' initially, by feeding cholesterol-rich foods to rabbits, who are herbivores without the ability to metabolize cholesterol at all. Their arteries became clogged. Later, the theory was modified to pin the blame less on cholesterol itself and more on consumption of saturated fats.
 

Many skeptics have doubted the theory since. The skeptics are gaining momentum, because they are assembling, from excellent data, facts that, as Kuhn pointed out, don't fit the lipid theory. He called such facts 'anomalies.' (Ronald Reagan said facts were 'stubborn things.') Anomalies in the cholesterol theory of heart disease are indeed mounting.
 

In the August 21 New York Times, Jane Brody demonstrates the desperate logic of those who are perplexed that the reigning theory - butter is bad for you - doesn't seem to fit the facts. Brody is not alone. The theory is increasingly contradicted by clinical data.
 

This is what happened to Brody, by her own account. Her HDL, VLDL, triglycerides, blood pressure, and weight were all excellent. But her 'total cholesterol' had crept up to 222 - this is regarded as 'high' and 'dangerous' - and her LDL was also 'high' at 134.
 

So she decided to lose weight (though it wasn't clear why) and take a plant stanol to lower LDL. Later she was retested. Both total cholesterol and LDL were higher.
 

She decided to take further steps. She 'further' limited red meat and always ate it without the fat; she decided to 'stick to' low-fat ice cream; she ate more fish and she took fish oil; and she ate more fiber. At the next test, her total cholesterol and LDL were once again higher.
 

In other words, eating less fat, less natural saturated fat (we can assume from her writings that Brody doesn't eat artificial trans fats), and less red meat did not have the effect the theory predicts on total cholesterol and LDL. This is what Kuhn called anomalies: observations (aka facts) that don't fit the theory.
 

But Brody is pretty committed to the skim-milk, low-fat, low-saturated fat, light-on-red-meat diet. And she is a determined person, it appears, as well as a determined journalist. Though her doctor wasn't worried, Brody decided that diet was not enough: she would also take statins to lower LDL. Stay tuned: she will surely report back.
 

Statin drugs are the best-selling drugs in the country and include Lipitor. They block the liver from producing cholesterol, one of its natural products. They are known to lower blood levels of LDL. What they are not known to do is save the lives of women who have 'high' cholesterol but don't have heart disease.
 

If my mother, who is also in her mid-60s, had Jane Brody's numbers, this is what I would tell her.
 

Scratch that hypothetical. By now, I hope, you expect candor of me. My mother's numbers are, in fact, similar. And this is what I did tell her.
 

We know that dietary cholesterol has very little effect on blood cholesterol. That is why cholesterol-rich foods like egg yolks are back on the menu. People who eat more eggs have less heart disease. (JAMA, Hu et al, 1999)
 

We know that the figure 'total cholesterol' is a poor predictor of heart disease mortality (Framingham study), especially in women. According to James Wright of the University of British Columbia, cholesterol is the weakest risk factor in women for heart disease.
 

We know that traditional diets contain abundant meat and saturated fats and the people who eat those diets do not suffer from heart disease. Mann, for example, studied the Masai (meat-eaters and milk and blood drinkers in Kenya) and found they had healthy lipids. In a 20-year study, researchers in Wales found that men who drank more milk had less heart disease, even though cholesterol and blood pressure were similar in the high and low milk drinkers. (Elwood et al, 2005) There are similar studies on diets rich in saturated fats from coconut oil. (Ng et al, 1991; de Roos et al, 2001; Kaunitz, 1986)
 

We know that the net effect of natural saturated fats, such as coconut oil and milk fat, is to raise HDL. The National Cholesterol Education Program is clear about the virtues of HDL: 'the higher, the better.
 

'We know that in people over 65, high LDL - yes, the 'bad' one - means a longer life. (Journal of American Geriatrics, Schupf et al, 1995). 'There is nothing bad about LDL,' says Joel Kauffman, a cholesterol expert I interviewed. 'There never was.'
 

We know that statin drugs deplete the body of CoQ10, a nutrient essential for heart health. As cardiologist Peter Langsjoen told me, 'The first thing I do is take my heart patients off statins.' We know that statins have not been proved effective in young people, women, or people over 65. (Ravnskov)

 

The Center for Medical Consumers puts it this way: 'One might reasonably expect the US government's cholesterol-treatment guidelines to be firmly based on scientific evidence. [Yet] analysis of the other trials that included healthy but high-risk people without heart disease showed that statins should not be prescribed to women of any age who do not have heart disease or diabetes, or to men older than 69 years who do not have heart disease or diabetes because no benefit was shown for them.' (My emphasis.)
 

Unlike a natural food such as fish oil (which can raise HDL and lower LDL), statin drugs have side effects. They include muscle pain and memory loss. (Dr. Duane Graveline, Lipitor: Thief of Memory.)
 

We also know that eating fish, fruit and vegetables, B vitamins (in whole grains), and fiber are all good for your heart. So is moderate consumption of alcohol and dark chocolate, and (probably immoderate) consumption of olive oil. Three cheers! On these things, Jane Brody and I can agree. All these foods, as well as the butter she shuns, are found in traditional diets all over the world.

 

One more thing. We know that half the people who have heart problems have 'normal' or 'desirable' LDL. (Framingham) Something else must be responsible for these cases of heart disease. What is it? Several hypotheses are in play. One is lack of B vitamins (Dr Kilmer McCully). Another is inflammation. Another is lack of omega-3 fats (wild salmon) and excess of omega-6 fats (corn and soy bean oil).What's that sound? In the middle distance, I hear the clinking, clunking, rusting, wheezing, creaking sounds of a paradigm shift. It's not tidy - and there will be plenty of bleating by the flat-earthers, as they watch their precious theory crumble - but mark my words: it's coming.

Date Added: Aug 22, 2007"

So it's right in my area of interest - diet and heart health. That's a good starter. Then there is some insight into my second criterion of judgement - who she hangs out with or recommends on her web site under links. Two in particular that I have read a lot of and respect. Weston Price: Father of Real Food Research and The Cholesterol Skeptics. So for me at least it's two-for-two. So I recommend Nina Planck and definately will be looking into more of her links. Sounds very interesting. And her book "Real Food" sounds worthwhile.