Originally published December 13 2005
Medical writer questions validity of popular cholesterol beliefs
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Malcolm Kendrick examines the cholesterol, or diet-heart, hypothesis which has so widely impacted the food industry and society in general.
If you eat too much cholesterol, or saturated fat, your blood cholesterol will rise to dangerous levels.
At the same time, millions of people are prescribed statins to lower cholesterol levels, and each new set of guidelines suggests that ever-more lowering of cholesterol is needed.
When it comes to explaining what causes heart disease, the cholesterol hypothesis reigns supreme.
Ancel Key's seminal Seven Countries Study is published, demonstrating clear links between saturated fat intake and heart disease.
Presented in this way, it's not difficult to see how the cholesterol hypothesis became the dominant hypothesis, effortlessly swatting alternative ideas into touch.
The first of these was the stark observation that cholesterol in the diet has no effect on cholesterol levels in the bloodstream: 'There's no connection whatsoever between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood.
One regularly quoted fact, which superficially seems supportive of O'Keefe's hypothesis, is that peasant farmers in China have very low cholesterol levels and a very low rate of heart disease (although their average cholesterol levels are actually about four, not two-and-a-half).
The cholesterol hypothesis has always exuded the siren song of simplicity.
Cholesterol is not soluble in water (thus blood) which means that after absorption, cells lining the gut pack cholesterol into a small protein/lipid sphere, known as a lipoprotein, before releasing it into the bloodstream.
Instead, you have a level of different lipoproteins, with the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or 'bad' cholesterol being the so-called dangerous one.
If it were simply a case of excess LDL seeping through the artery wall when the level gets too high, then why doesn't this happen in all artery walls, everywhere?
-- However, white blood cells, once they have started to digest oxidised LDL cannot stop.
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