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Article by Infofit

Pharma Scam Led by Cholesterol Myths

Cholesterol levels are a poor predictor of heart attacks.

Cholesterol Doesn’t Cause Heart Disease

According to Dr. Stephen Sinatra & Dr. Jonny Bowden what we thought we knew about cholesterol is wrong.  As said in their new book, they call the current view a “scam” & a “myth” and site the longest-running and most significant study on heart disease done to date and The Framingham Heart Study to back it up.

Hypothetical Connection Between High Levels and Heart Disease

Summarizing their belief:

  • The hypothetical connection between high levels of total cholesterol and heart disease has never been proven. A diagnosis conjured up to serve drug companies, wanting to sell cholesterol-lowering (serious harmful side-effect-causing) critically claimed ineffective statin drugs.
  • Cholesterol levels are a poor predictor of heart attacks. 50% of heart attack victims have high levels, and 50% of people who have high cholesterol do not have heart disease.
  • Recent studies suggest statin drugs are tied with a higher risk of diabetes, a major risk factor for heart disease.
  • The theory that fat and cholesterol cause heart disease became widely accepted despite the countless evidence to the contrary.
  • Today’s widely practiced belief that the best method of preventing heart disease is a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol is not supported by available evidence from clinical trials.

Lousy Side Effects to Unknowing Victims

Big Pharma is busy raking in over $31 billion annually by selling high-cholesterol drugs with lousy side effects to unknowing victims. Dr. Bowden and Dr. Sinatra agree that Big Pharma success is putting the North American public’s health at risk.

Major Predictor of Coronary Artery Disease is Chronic Inflammation

In addition, all of this erroneous focus on high cholesterol is diverting research dollars away from the real cause of heart disease being inflammation & Sugar. A major predictor of coronary artery disease is chronic inflammation. Studies learned that elevated levels of CRP (inflammation) puts you at twice the risk of dying from cardiovascular-related problems as those with high cholesterol.

Many medical professionals and researchers now believe the primary causes of heart disease are inflammation and oxidative stress. Unfortunately, the rest of us haven’t gotten the memo, so to speak, that cholesterol isn’t the cause of heart disease. They felt obligated in writing this book because they believe strongly that the public has been misinformed and in some cases blatantly lied to about cholesterol. They claim that a combination of faulty information, scientifically highly questionable studies, massive corporate greed, and deceptive marketing is considered medical history’s most enduring and damaging myths that cholesterol causes heart disease.

Millions of Marketing Dollars Perpetuate This Myth

They claim that many millions of marketing dollars have perpetuated this myth and kept the public narrowly focused on the development of heart disease. While in the process, pharma companies generate nearly $30 billion in annual sales of cholesterol-lowering drugs. While there is so much emphasis on its dangers, the tragedy is that the actual causes of heart disease—inflammation, oxidation, sugar, and stress—have been highly ignored. See Statin Fact Sheet.

If cholesterol caused heart disease, risk factor should be in 1) all ages, 2) both sexes and 3) all populations globally (barring any protective factor, of course). Also, we would expect that with efforts in lowering cholesterol would reduce heart disease. But none of these assumptions turn out to be true.

The rate of heart disease in 65-year old men is 10 times that of 45-year old men. Yet a recent study in the Journal of American Medical Association claimed that high LDL is not a risk factor for from coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality or total mortality (death from any cause). It is highly unlikely that a risk factor for a disease would stop being a risk factor at a time when that disease kills the greatest number of people. That is akin to suggesting that smoking causes lung cancer in young men, but somehow stops doing so later in older men!

No relationship between total cholesterol levels and mortality from cardiovascular

At the recent Conference on Low Blood Cholesterol, which reviewed 11 studies including 125,000 women, was determined that there was no relationship between total cholesterol levels and mortality from cardiovascular or any other causes. Nor is cholesterol a risk factor in all populations around the world. In fact, some of the populations with the highest levels of blood cholesterol have among the lowest rates of heart disease, and vice versa. Dr. Malcom Kendrick, a well-known skeptic of the lipid-hypothesis, explains this very well in the video below:

Ref:

https://www.drsinatra.com/high-cholesterol-myths-to-protect-your-heart
https://jonnybowden.com/cholesterol-myths/
https://www.spacedoc.com/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17696579
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648