Does High Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease?

Ancel Keyes is to blame for the cholesterol hypothesis. He manipulated the data to justify his conclusion about cholesterol as the cause of CVD. By the way, statin drugs are the biggest money makers for drug companies, therefore, it’s no wonder that they keep pushing the medical community to prescribe statins.

I read about this years ago in a professional nursing journal or maybe a science journal. I have no idea now, but I am surprised that from the evidence cited in that that this idea about cholesterol is still not questioned more widely. It may be part of a problem but I had the impression that to blame high cholestetol on its own was too simplistic.

I said to my doctor that the observations cited here suggest to me that it must be safer to have higher cholesterol. He got angry but didn’t refute the observations. I knew that he must have known about these studies which counter the conventional view. He splattered angrily that cholesterol is only one of many factors for consideration. I said that I don’t care how many different factors need considering- and I know I’m dumb at math – but those numbers mean to me that I am comfortable now in rejecting thepressure he has been putting on me for a long time to take statins to lower my l.d.l thereby catapulting me into the higher risk group.
My instinct tells me that lack of exercise could well be, in itself, without referencing to cholesterol numbers, a risk factor along with smoking. My instinct also tells me that I will do as much as I can by natural means to lower my total cholesterol number. Or, rather, I will exercise and eat well and be calm and as happy as I can be trusting that this will have a beneficial effect on my health
But that doesn’t put me in your camp which says we ought to avoid a high number because high numbers are best avoided. (Extremes) My contention is that some practices and some foods are healthy and others are unhealthy . These latter are to be avoided. To say a high number is to be avoided because it is a high number is still espousing a philosophical position that contradicts the mathematics of the observations cited.
No?

As a retired GP I have spent most of my working life suspicious of the cholesterol theory and pushing high doses of statins, but I am so impressed in general about the amount of evidence based info incorporated into Second Nature.

I am surprised you have not mentioned high sugar levels being thought to cause blood vessel damage and increase plaque formation. This idea has been on the scene for a while.

A very interesting and thought provoking article- thank you. Please could you explain how the blood clotting hypothesis works in terms of geography i.e. why there are more deaths from heart disease in Russia compared to France?