Does Cholesterol Really Cause Heart Disease? -A very important Question

For a long time the medical industry was focused on lowering people’s cholesterol levels. And a big focus of that was telling them to avoid foods that were high in cholesterol. First off there are studies that show how much cholesterol you eat has no impact whatsoever on your body’s cholesterol levels- your body manufacturs cholesterol on its own. Secondly new studies coming out show that lowering your cholesterol at best is a neutral factor on arteries clogging up with plaque, and at worst actually increases damage. As high cholesterol lowers inflamation, the inflamation leading to the start of plaques.

Let us start with this excerpt from Vreni Gurd at the trusted.md blog,

Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, who wrote the book The Cholesterol Myths, goes through study after study destroying the idea that high cholesterol levels are the cause of heart disease. In the Framingham heart study done near Boston that spanned 30 years , the researchers concluded that high cholesterol was a risk factor for heart disease, but when one really dissects the data, one must question how they came to that conclusion. For example, when the participants of the study are plotted on a graph it clearly shows that those with cholesterol levels between 182 and 222 did not survive as long as those with higher cholesterol levels of between 222 and 261. The study shows that about half the people with heart disease had low cholesterol, and half the people without heart disease had high cholesterol.

Full article: ‘High Cholesterol does NOT cause heart disease’
Link to the Article

And then some interesting and alarming information from two more studies. This time courtesy of Chris Kesser at Medicine for the 21st Century.

Honolulu Heart Program study, with 8,000 participants, published in 2001:

“Long-term persistence of low cholesterol concentration actually increases the risk of death. Thus, the earlier the patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations, the greater the risk of death.”

And finally, the huge Japanese Lipid Intervention Trial with over 47,000 participants: “The highest death rate observed was among those with lowest cholesterol (under 160mg/dl); lowest death rate observed was with those whose cholesterol was between 200-259mg/dl”

In other words, those with the lowest cholesterol had the highest death rate, and those with cholesterol levels that would today be called “dangerous” had the lowest death rate.

Full article: ‘Cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease’
Link to the Article

It is bad enough when the medical industry is treating symptoms but not curing the underlying problem. It is alarming are not even treating the right symptoms, instead actually worsening things. Ponder that for a second, there are people who spent many years tryinig to lower their cholesterol and with the new studies coming out it is looking like it actually increased their chances of dying early.