We all have heard at one time or another some announcer on television or radio say "clinical studies have shown..." and what follows is thought or assumed to be credible information. Rightfully so when it is considered that all clinical studies follow the scientific method, right? For the most part yes but there is more to the story and studies involving cholesterol aren't always what they seem to be.
The Bad
Scientist pride themselves on the scientific method and why not. Surely if you want to propose that a thing or an outcome is "true" you have to observe it over and over again and let the data tell you what is real and what is not. The problem, from time to time, is that scientist are human and are subject to the frailties associated with being such. Pride, arrogance, and greed, especially greed, has steered many doctors and scientist astray while conducting clinical studies. We, the non-clinical study conducting types, have our part to play as well by allowing people with profit driven agendas to run these drug studies without demanding a neutral third party either run a concurrent study or run the entire study outright. After all its only our health at stake. At this point I would like to be clear about one thing: I do not mind people making a profit. I just don't like it when it is at the expense of others as opposed to the benefit of others (and this is where I digress).
Cholesterol studies have long been plagued by biased research. One of the largest and most damaging of these studies was the Framingham Heart Study (FHS). The FHS began in 1948 in Framingham, Massachusetts involving 5,000 residents of the town. Follow up was conducted with the residents for 16 years. In the end it was claimed that a direct link between cholesterol and heart disease had been firmly established. This study has been heavily cited in order to defend the "cholesterol-causes-heart disease" hypothesis and helped form a $30 billion per year cholesterol drug industry. There are several key points to consider with this study that some would find alarming and the main ones are these:
According to this study cholesterol levels seemed to imply adverse cardiovascular health only for white men who had a heart attack before the age of 48. There was very little, if any, information garnered by this study that had any broad cholesterol "doom and gloom" appeal for the general population. In fact, the study director, Dr. William Castelli acknowledged in an article written in 1992 in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine that those people who participated in the study who consumed the most saturated fat, calories and cholesterol tended to have lower blood serum cholesterol levels, were the most active and weighed the least all while not experiencing any statistically significant increase in poor cardiovascular health outcomes.
The Good
One of the longest and most comprehensive studies ever undertaken was called the Nurses' Health Study conducted by Harvard University. The goal was to determine the risk factors for cancer and heart disease. Researchers conducted an extensive analysis of over 84,000 women and made a startling discovery. They determined that there were five essential contributing factors regarding cancer and heart disease in 82 percent of the women and they are as follows:
Did you notice cholesterol didn't make the list? You can believe the drug companies did not want to hear any part of this because this study definitely had the potential to interfere with profits! In the end, however, it is a lot easier for patients and lucrative for the drug pushers to take a pill than it is to lead a healthy lifestyle so the study fell mostly on deaf ears and those who did hear and believe were ridiculed or ostracized by "scientist" backed by big money from pharmaceutical companies.
In the next installment we will discuss the true villain when it comes to heart disease: inflammation!
If you would like to read about more studies and the cholesterol myth (in case you just can't wait for the next article) I recommend reading "The Great Cholesterol Myth" written by Dr. Jonny Bowden and Dr. Stephen Sinatra.
The Bad
Scientist pride themselves on the scientific method and why not. Surely if you want to propose that a thing or an outcome is "true" you have to observe it over and over again and let the data tell you what is real and what is not. The problem, from time to time, is that scientist are human and are subject to the frailties associated with being such. Pride, arrogance, and greed, especially greed, has steered many doctors and scientist astray while conducting clinical studies. We, the non-clinical study conducting types, have our part to play as well by allowing people with profit driven agendas to run these drug studies without demanding a neutral third party either run a concurrent study or run the entire study outright. After all its only our health at stake. At this point I would like to be clear about one thing: I do not mind people making a profit. I just don't like it when it is at the expense of others as opposed to the benefit of others (and this is where I digress).
Cholesterol studies have long been plagued by biased research. One of the largest and most damaging of these studies was the Framingham Heart Study (FHS). The FHS began in 1948 in Framingham, Massachusetts involving 5,000 residents of the town. Follow up was conducted with the residents for 16 years. In the end it was claimed that a direct link between cholesterol and heart disease had been firmly established. This study has been heavily cited in order to defend the "cholesterol-causes-heart disease" hypothesis and helped form a $30 billion per year cholesterol drug industry. There are several key points to consider with this study that some would find alarming and the main ones are these:
- During the study it was found that cardiovascular disease struck people with both high and low cholesterol (some levels as low as 150 mg/dl)
- Thirty years after the study it was found that people with higher cholesterol levels lived just as long or longer, on average, as those with low cholesterol
According to this study cholesterol levels seemed to imply adverse cardiovascular health only for white men who had a heart attack before the age of 48. There was very little, if any, information garnered by this study that had any broad cholesterol "doom and gloom" appeal for the general population. In fact, the study director, Dr. William Castelli acknowledged in an article written in 1992 in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine that those people who participated in the study who consumed the most saturated fat, calories and cholesterol tended to have lower blood serum cholesterol levels, were the most active and weighed the least all while not experiencing any statistically significant increase in poor cardiovascular health outcomes.
The Good
One of the longest and most comprehensive studies ever undertaken was called the Nurses' Health Study conducted by Harvard University. The goal was to determine the risk factors for cancer and heart disease. Researchers conducted an extensive analysis of over 84,000 women and made a startling discovery. They determined that there were five essential contributing factors regarding cancer and heart disease in 82 percent of the women and they are as follows:
- Smoking
- Sedentary lifestyle (little to no daily exercise)
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Poor weight maintenance
- Diet that did not consist of whole foods, whole grains (fiber intake) and was high in sugar.
Did you notice cholesterol didn't make the list? You can believe the drug companies did not want to hear any part of this because this study definitely had the potential to interfere with profits! In the end, however, it is a lot easier for patients and lucrative for the drug pushers to take a pill than it is to lead a healthy lifestyle so the study fell mostly on deaf ears and those who did hear and believe were ridiculed or ostracized by "scientist" backed by big money from pharmaceutical companies.
In the next installment we will discuss the true villain when it comes to heart disease: inflammation!
If you would like to read about more studies and the cholesterol myth (in case you just can't wait for the next article) I recommend reading "The Great Cholesterol Myth" written by Dr. Jonny Bowden and Dr. Stephen Sinatra.
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