Discover how the cholesterol myth has influenced perceptions of cardiovascular health and how chiropractic care and natural health can offer a different, more balanced perspective.
How is a myth created?
I don't know if you've heard of J. Goebbels's quote: “A lie, when repeated a thousand times, becomes the truth.” And this concept is well known and used today for various purposes.
In 1954, A researcher named David Kritchevsky published a study on the effects of feeding rabbits pure cholesterol. What happened was that they ended up developing atherosclerosis. The big mistake was assuming that this result in rabbits—which are herbivores—could be applied to humans, when human physiology is entirely different. What actually took shape from that point on, due to the powerful influence of that study on Ancel Keys, was the creation of a myth. And I say this because there are also countless scientific studies that demonstrate exactly the opposite.
Ancel Keys' population-based study in the Seven Countries Study Published in 1972, the study examined sixteen populations across a total of seven countries (originally six). This study has been cited countless times to demonstrate that saturated fat intake raises cholesterol levels, which is associated with cardiovascular problems.
However, the study is riddled with biases, errors, and even important information that the researcher did not consider significant and therefore did not include in the report. For example, in these cases: saturated fat intake was the same in Crete and Corfu, but the latter island had sixteen times as many cases of cardiovascular disease.
Something similar was observed between North Karelia and Turku, both in Finland. Based on the electrocardiograms included in the study, people with more serious heart problems tended to consume less saturated fat.
Countries such as France and Switzerland were left out appropriately excluded from the study because both cases refute the hypothesis regarding cholesterol and saturated fat (France and Switzerland consume a lot of saturated fat and have low rates of cardiovascular disease).
In fact, using the data from the 22 countries available at the time, it was possible to justify any claim about saturated fat consumption and link it to cholesterol by selectively choosing certain countries while leaving out those that did not interest them. The fraud behind this theory seems obvious.
The fact that Japanese men living in Japan had low cholesterol and a low rate of heart attacks, while Japanese men living in California had high cholesterol and a high incidence of cardiovascular disease, was taken as confirmation of this hypothesis. Keys considered it irrelevant to his conclusions that Japanese Americans in California with low cholesterol had more heart problems than Japanese Americans in California with high cholesterol.
- In 1961, Mathur and his colleagues They found no link between cholesterol and arterial plaque after analyzing 20 autopsies and more than 200 scientific cases.
- In 1962, Dr. Marek published an article in the American Heart Journal with the same conclusion: There is no correlation between cholesterol and arterial plaque.
- In 1964, after analyzing a thousand patients during surgeries, surgeon Michael DeBakey conveyed the same message: Arteriosclerosis has nothing to do with blood cholesterol levels. In 1964, the Journal of the American Medical AssociationIt reported that the Italian community in Roseto, Pennsylvania, consumed large amounts of animal fat—for example, they cooked almost exclusively with lard—and had a «surprisingly low» incidence of cardiovascular disease.
Keys, Stamler, and all proponents of the cholesterol and fat hypothesis had no trouble at all dismissing any research that contradicted their findings as worthless, irrelevant, or misinterpreted.
- In the 1980s, through clinical studies, Keys and his colleagues attempted to prove their theory, since population-based studies were unreliable; the study LRC (resulting in After 8 years of follow-up, cardiovascular mortality was the same among those who lowered their cholesterol with medication and diet as among those who did not change their diet or take the medication).
- The study MRFIT with a result similar to the previous one. And the study Helsinki Heart Study with a result of 17 deaths among those taking the drug, compared with only 8 among those who were not taking it the cholesterol-lowering drug. Keys and his colleagues considered this finding to be of little significance in the study's conclusions.
- In the 1990s, Canadian scientists reported their findings from a study of nearly 5,000 middle-aged patients whom they followed for twelve years, with the same results, stating that There is no link between cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.
Just under 1% of humans have much higher cholesterol levels than the rest of us. This is due to a genetic variant called familial or hereditary hypercholesterolemia, and it represents an interesting group to study.
- In 2001, a group of Dutch researchers found that in the 19th century, people with this genetic variant lived slightly longer than averageAnd since infectious diseases were the most common cause of death at that time, they concluded that cholesterol somehow protected against viruses and bacteria.
- In fact, shortly thereafter, another study was published that found that low cholesterol was a risk factor for any type of infectious disease. In fact, it is known that people with low cholesterol are at greater risk of death from intestinal and pulmonary problems, a significant proportion of which are caused by infections.
There is a steady stream of studies reaching the same conclusion—that there is no link between fat intake and arterial plaque—and we’ve listed the sources for these studies below.
But even so, the low-fat diet and the recommendation to take cholesterol medication ended up becoming politicized. And that’s how the cholesterol myth was born: for decades, saturated fats have been the usual culprits blamed for high cholesterol.
And this myth has been created by the media, public opinion—through repetition—and by government agencies, which often have advisors from the pharmaceutical industry.
We also know that in recent years this alleged guilt has been called into question, with growing support for the idea that it is the sugar in particular, and the refined carbohydrates In general, those who should bear the brunt of that bad reputation.
Low-fat diets, which by definition are high in carbohydrates, end up raising LDL cholesterol (the so-called “bad” cholesterol), and, more worryingly, the atherosclerotic type of LDL—which consists of small, dense particles (the truly “bad” kind)—as reported in the November 2005 issue of *Current Atherosclerosis Reports*.
If some clinical studies overlook the relationship between glycemic carbohydrates and LDL cholesterol, it is because they do not distinguish between these two types of LDL. Contrary to what we are told, having high LDL cholesterol is not bad if the particles are large; the problem arises when they are small.
It is precisely these latter particles that appear to be negatively affected by the consumption of glycemic carbohydrates. When our diet involves high LDL cholesterol treated with a low-fat diet, this ultimately forces an increase in LDL cholesterol—particularly the small, dangerous particles—as many cardiologists have observed firsthand.
So you'll likely be a consumer of statins to lower cholesterol. The more strictly you follow this recommended diet, the greater the likelihood of higher doses of statins.
Your doctor should advise you to take coenzyme Q10, since statins suppress its natural production. This will lead to fatigue and muscle pain in the medium to long term. In this case, it is unlikely that your doctor has advised you to solutions non-drug approaches to managing cholesterol.
Important studies demonstrating the lack of a link between saturated fats and arterial plaque or cholesterol
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19828709
Sources of the studies: https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/article/96/12/927/1533176/High-cholesterol-may-protect-against-infections
http://www.bmj.com/content/322/7293/1019
Canadian Study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2310996
Years of study:
60: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14124703
70: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1930588/
80: http://journals.lww.com/jcrjournal/Abstract/1986/11200/Prognostic_Factors_for_Mortality_in_a.4.aspx
90: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8150059
2000: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10690699
Population-based studies: http://healthimpactnews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/07/22-countries.gif
An obvious lie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8WA5wcaHp4
