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Does Cholesterol Matter?



The demonization of cholesterol began in 1959, when nutrition researcher Ancel Keys and his wife, Margaret, published Eat Well and Stay Well, which linked diet, cholesterol, and heart disease. The idea that excessive cholesterol causes atherosclerosis and heart disease has since become close to dogma.



Yet the notion has plenty of detractors, including Swedish physician Uffe Ravnskov, author of the book The Cholesterol Myths and spokesman for the International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics, a vociferous group of physicians, researchers, and others.



“Many autopsy studies have shown there is no association between the degree of arteriosclerosis in the arteries and cholesterol concentration in the blood, taken either shortly or immediately after death,” Ravnskov says. At his Web site (www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm), he lists dozens of such studies from medical journals. Ravnskov vigorously disputes the lipid hypothesis, the view that dietary cholesterol and fat clog arteries and can ultimately harm the heart. Detractors of the idea have become so numerous that last May, the Weston A. Price Foundation devoted an entire conference in Washington, D.C., to the subject, titled, “Heart Disease in the 21st Century: Beyond the Lipid Hypothesis.” The subtitle: “Exposing the Fallacy That Cholesterol and Saturated Fat Cause Heart Disease.”



A featured speaker was Kilmer McCully, author of The Heart Revolution and a professor of pathology at Brown University. McCully proposed in 1969 that the cause of spiraling heart-disease rates was the modern diet of processed foods, which lack three B vitamins—folic acid, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12—that hold the amino acid homocysteine in check. Studies have shown that too much homocysteine in the blood correlates with an increased risk of heart disease. Denounced at first, the idea is catching on. Other researchers say rising rates of obesity and insulin resistance, linked to increased consumption of refined carbohydrates, are better predictors of heart disease than high cholesterol.



So why does the lipid hypothesis continue to hold so much sway? “There is prestige and money at stake,” contends Ravnskov, and much of it flows from the cholesterol-lowering class of drugs known as statins. Ravnskov does not dispute studies that show statins can lower the risk of heart disease, but he contends that they do this by a different mechanism from simple cholesterol reduction and says the drugs can cause severe side effects. Ravnskov and other critics of the lipid hypothesis argue that a vitamin and/or unprocessed-food regimen for keeping homocysteine levels low has no special interests to promote its utility.

Nice to see more mainstream coverage of this issue.

My SO and her siblings are all in the health care field... and when they learned that my doc had put me on lipitor, they all begged me to get off it as it's a most dangerous drug. Today, after Lo Carbing for nearly 4 mo, I had my blood drawn. I will know next month, at the next doc visit how my cholesterol level is... I know it has come down.. I know it!!!!!!

I refuse to take drugs that can cause irreversible damage to my body... and I DO believe its all in the drug companies promoting "bad cholesterol" with eating habits. After all, cholesterol is a natural occurance in the human body as we age... Thanks for the article strops.

I now refuse to take Lipitor or anything else.

Since I started menopause about 5 yrs ago my cholesterol has gone thru the roof! With and without LC. (went up faster on LF than LC tho). When my total hit 325 and my "good" cholesterol went under 30 I did try Lipitor.

I was on it 8 weeks and my total dropped to 150. BUT the good cholesterol went up 2-3 points and that's it! My doc wanted me to keep on it, even suggested adding a second because she wanted the bad to be below 100!!!!

I have read many articles that state that there are more chances of depression, suicide, stroke, memory problems. It seems cholesterol is ESSENTIAL in repairing blood vessels.

Now...I have NO family history of heart disease....we cannot find ANY family members that have been treated for, let alone died from heart disease. Several have had high blood pressure (on both mom and dad's side) and my dad along with 2 of his siblings all had strokes.

I don't care what my heart risk is! I canre what my stroke risk is! By taking this medication I do not believe it was doing anything good for my heart....that is IF the levels even matter...and I feel VERY STRONGLY that I increased my risk of stroke.

I also started to have depression.....first time in my life I've been considered depressed.....I'm the always happy, always in a good mood, fighting growing up goof ball I've been all my life! and now, all of a sudden, just 2 weeks after going on this med I start crying at little or no provocation????? It's the menopause? Oh please! I've been done with that for a year!

I have severe stomach problems that also acted up while on Lipitor. My GI specialist made it clear that this is directly related to the lipitor....BUT when I told my doc she said it was too important to stop! I stopped it for a while, then went back on it for a few days and had a major relapse with my belly.

Now that I'm off the med my stomach is better...but it's still a mess. My doc said it was more important to take care of my heart than my stomach! Hye, maybe I won't die from the stomach trouble (not that I think I'll die from heart attack) but I certainly will wish I did!

Have any of you had morning sickness? nausea? that lasts all day long? I've had this feeling for almost a year now....I've had nausea and gagging to the point it causes my heart rate to slow and my BP to drop...to the point of dizziness. Every other mouthfull of food gets stuck in my throat...and things aren't going to get better by going back on that med! The med is what set this all off.

I'm finding me a new doc. Going to talk to my GI doc in January and see if he can recomend someone.