where to start?
Back to the original question about diet and cholesterol. This source has general info on fat and cholesterol
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionso ... full-story
This one is about the portfolio diet, a group of foods which together have been shown in a clinical trial to lower blood cholesterol as effectively as a low dose statin.
http://www.heartuk.org.uk/artman/publis ... _549.shtml
Pianoman
The history recounted in the video, is selective and very much to do with the US .It ignores a whole wealth of research from elsewhere and the dietary history of US guidelines has little to do with Europe and or the UK. (and in the US I don't see much evidence of the guidelines being followed by many).
It has been interesting to read Denise Mingers interpretation of the Ancel Keys 'cherrypicking' story. (for those who haven't heard of her she is a young blogger who has been a favourite of low carb and paleo followers for a scholarly demolition of much of the China study) Ancel Keys has been demonised yet was one of the first to point to the effects of trans fats on cholesterol back in 1960 and as quoted by MInger dismissed the idea that that dietary cholesterol (nb cholesterol not fats) had anything to do arterial disease (he wouldn't have condemned egg)
Anyone who wants to read the history of the cholesterol controversy in the UK rather than the US could follow these references ( the second is very detailed but difficult to read as it is an oral history)
http://www.britathsoc.org/bas_gil_thompson_talk.html
CHOLESTEROL, ATHEROSCLEROSIS AND
CORONARY DISEASE IN THE UK, 1950–2000
Mingers blog about Ancel Keys 'cherrypicking'
(caution statistics)
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/12/22/the-tr ... -it-wrong/
In the UK in the last 50-60 years, not only have the types of foods eaten changed, but the relative proportions of fats and carbs.. and it's not higher carbs. In the 1940s each kJ of carbohydrate in the diet was associated with 0 6 kJ of fat and in the 1990s with 0.9 kJ of fat, an increase of 50% . Paradoxically people were eating fewer calories overall. On the other hand they were also doing far less exercise with large segments of the population doing very little at all.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7640595
Carbman
carbman said:
Check out the facts. For Men over 60 years of age. The lower the total cholesterol the nearer you are to death. .
Superficially true, very low cholesterol levels are associated with high mortality. They are also associated with" with low weight or BMI, or weight loss, poor physical functioning, infections, and other markers of lower health, like low serum albumin and iron. Those with the lowest levels are often those who have dropped from previously high levels "
"Average cholesterol levels fall with increasing age...Cholesterol loss appears to be greater in those with an initially high level."
http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/ ... 133-2.html
You get old and sick , develop renal or heart problems and cholesterol falls . I could find you similar graphs to show the lowest levels of blood glucose associated with more mortality for much the same reasons. (in fact my 85 year old father has much lower lipid and glucose levels than I, he also has congestive heart failure )That doesn't mean that the opposite ie high levels are good