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Guardian : both barrels....

I wish somebody would repeat what the BHF and WHO did some years ago. You look at everyone who has had a cardio vascular event and do the blood work to find out what their total cholesterol, LDL, HDL etc etc is.

As for statins, well all I know for sure is that if my total cholesterol of 4 is a problem for the medical world and means I will die from a cardio vascular event, I would prefer death to the constant leg muscle pain and brain fog that I experienced for the 17 years that I took statins. My total cholesterol in 1997 was 7, so baring in mind I no longer take statins, I think I've done well with dietary changes (low carb ? fat).
 
The Guardian Vegan agenda strikes again! Disgraceful that no-one has put their name to it.. and the lack the ability to comment is becoming a "feature" of a lot of this type of article in the Gruan.. a sad day.
 
I see it extensively quotes Rory Collins who refuses to release statin research data but keeps writing papers saying "trust me, nothing to see here".
 
Are you saying that to be left wing is to be vegan oriented? Interesting that today the WWF cited mass soy bean cultivation as a destroyer of species and not just the slugs!
Not sure of that but as I understand it the evidence that is pro the lipid heart hypothesis is epidimiological and does not yet give a causal reason why high ldl might cause heart disease. The 'other side' would argue that high ldl in the context of low hdl/high triglycerides is a marker for distressed arteries so it is just not a s simple as this article suggests. Public Health messages are very tricky - if you give butter a free pass, people may just have more toast rather than make bulletproof coffees, but I dislike the defeatist tone of this piece which seems to say that we cannot expect most people to eat better (dropping junk food so in fundamental agreement with 'the other side' )/exercise and therefore the only solution is to medicate! Then what if those medications do not prevent HD? The figures given for lives to be saved are projections and regardless of side effects, the RCts don't seem as convincing as this article portrays.
 
The article completely skips over the Ancel Keyes theory that "we are what we eat" so that if cholesterol is bad then we shouldn't eat cholesterol.
As far as I know it has been well established that most cholesterol is manufactured within the body, mainly from carbohydrates. So demonising fats because of cholesterol in the blood is a completely separate issue from contolling cholesterol levels.

Oh, and linking Guardian readers with left wing vegans is disingenuous to say the least. Unless all Daily Mail readers are automatically so right wing they make Tommy Robinson look centrist?

Allegedly you can read the Guardian and still eat meat. They even publish restaurant reviews and recipes with a very high meat content.
 
The nocebo effect? Andrew Wakefield? (He who was struck off? He who was outed for his direct links to big pharma?). Rory Collins? (He with his links to big pharma and its flat out refusal to publish?).

Oh My Days! It's not often I get mad this early in the morning but I am spluttering!
 
The biases in this piece are self-evident to anyone who takes a few minutes to research the backgrounds and affiliations of the two most vociferous commentators - Rory Collins and Dermot Neely.

@Guzzler has made the point and probably done sufficient spluttering for all of us, but I would simply like to comment on the quality of the author's reference sources, for instance:

From the British Dietetic Association, and referring to the mentioned worst celeb diets to avoid -
Raw Vegan:- Raw-ther a challenge
All-kale:- Kale-amity
Bulletproof Diet:- Un-bull-ievable
Katey Price's Nutritional Supplements:- Pricey
Pioppi Diet:- Pioppi-ably not a good idea
Ketogenic Diet:- ...ketone-ly with careful planning

There you have it, and worthy of the finest hacks from Sun and Mail.
 
Instead of all the MAYBE, COULD BE, WOULD BE, CAN BE, SHOULD BE around heart disease and its risk factors
Why Oh why don't they offer the Coronary Artery Calcium scan widely, so people can know, see, be aware of their actual, real, heart disease state and then take it from there.
 

I think that when they talk about these things it is pretty much with prevention in mind, so although it would be useful to know what state our arteries are in right now, I'm guessing they would say, ah, but what will they be like in 5 years etc.
 
KK123 said:
I think that when they talk about these things it is pretty much with prevention in mind, so although it would be useful to know what state our arteries are in right now, I'm guessing they would say, ah, but what will they be like in 5 years etc.
Click to expand...
That’s why you should have regular CAC scans to monitor the situation.
 
KK123 said:
I think that when they talk about these things it is pretty much with prevention in mind, so although it would be useful to know what state our arteries are in right now, I'm guessing they would say, ah, but what will they be like in 5 years etc.
Click to expand...

But that prevention rests on 100% honest-to-goodness proof of causality and that proof is nowhere near clear. Yet.
 
If you are asymptomatic and have a routine CAC scan and find your arterial calcium score is slightly elevated what do you do? Give up smoking, improve your diet (whatever that means) and get more exercise. Why not do those things anyway and avoid the expense of the scan?
 
LittleGreyCat said:
The article completely skips over the Ancel Keyes theory that "we are what we eat" so that if cholesterol is bad then we shouldn't eat cholesterol.
Click to expand...

"The evidence—both from experiments and from field surveys—indicates that the cholesterol content, per se, of all natural diets has no significant effect on either the serum cholesterol level or the development of atherosclerosis in man." - Ancel Keys from:
"The relationship of the diet to the development of atherosclerosis in man"
 
Everyone will be asymptomatic until they have a heart attack? Might be worth getting an idea first... there are some therapies that may help...
 
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