Sorry, I have no numbers. The original statement I read came from Uffe
Ravnskov's book "The Cholesterol Myths". I first read it about 6 or 7
years ago and don't have an electronic copy I can search. Sorry for my
own dodgy statistics but what's the chance of drawing 2 papers at random
from the thousands that are there that illustrated the point? I
originally thought Ravnskov was a nut case but that little search
experiment is what changed my mind.
But maybe some clarification would help. It's not that the points made
in the abstract were blatant lies. I don't recall the exact statements
but, to those who already believe, the statements made would not raise
any eyebrows. However, the way they were worded implied that this study
had examined and proved or re-proved the point. But they had done no
such thing. Nevertheless the abstract will be searched and cited as yet
another supporting paper.
I just did a quick visual search of Ravnskov's book and I can't (at
least quickly) find that comment which was only a sentence or two. But
while I was searching I did find a related comment which is much more
typical of what you find in such studies... statements in the abstract
or press releases that are relative to the study at hand but the
statement is untrue because the actual data in the study isn't
supportive because it's not statistically significant. For example,
from page 41 of Ravnskov's book:
------------------------------------------------------------------
Even worse, researchers often draw conclusions from dietary recall
studies when the results are not statistically significant. For
example, the National Research Council published the following statement
in Diet and Health: "Percentage of calories from SFAs [saturated fatty
acids] was positively associated with risk of CHD in the rural sample of
the Puerto Rican and the Ireland-Boston studies**
If you go into the library and look into the tables of these papers you
will see that the differences found were not statistically significant,
which means that the results were simply due to chance. And why didn't
the authors of Diet and Health mention that, if anything, heart attack
patients consumed more polyunsaturated fatty acids?
In a joint statement by the American Heart Association and the National
Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, researchers declared: "... showing the
link between diet and CHD, particularly impressive results [were
produced in] the Western-Electric, the Honolulu Heart, the Zutphen and
the Ireland-Boston studies."***
Yet the tables in these studies showed that only in the Honolulu Heart
Study had the patients eaten significantly more saturated fat. But they
also had consumed significantly more polyunsaturated oils, just the
opposite of what we have been led to expect.
** National Research Council. Diet and Health. Implications for
Reducing Chronic Disease Risk. National Academy Press, 1989, pg 193
*** Gotto AM, LaRosa JC, Hunninghake D and others. The Cholesterol
Facts. A summary of the evidence relating dietary fats, serum
cholesterol and coronary heart disease. A joint statement, etc..
Circulation 81, 1721-33, 1990. pg 1725.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunately, these guys are just following along in the pattern
established by Ancel Keys in the study that started the whole
cholesterol/fat/CHD ball rolling in 1953. Keys published a study
called: Atherosclerosis: A problem in newer public health. Journal of
Mt. Sinai Hospital 20, 118-139.
In his study he published data from six countries showing an extremely
tight correlation between mortality from CHD and percent of calories
from fat. The correlation was extraordinarily good. What Keys failed
to reveal is that data was actually available for 22 countries. When
all are included the correlation is considerably weaker. Um, cherry
picking anyone?
The Cholesterol Myths has been out of print for a long time but pieces
of it are here along with some related links:
<http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm>
And for more on the hijinks of cholesterol researchers try Gary Taubes'
investigative New York Times article:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html>
Lengthy but worth it. In fact, I think I'll re-read it soon now that
I've dug up the link.
ps: Studies of the elderly (meaning us old farts of 65 or more) at the
University of Hawaii and Univ. of California at San Diego actually show
that the higher our cholesterol the longer we live. Fancy that.
Now, don't jump off your Lipitor if you've had a heart attack. Studies
do show that statin drugs do reduce the incidence of another one.
However, the effect is not very large and you can likely do as well with
dietary supplements like fish oil (and others) that are known to reduce
inflammation. Statins also reduce inflammation and that may be the
mechanism. But fish oil is a hell of a lot cheaper and doesn't reduce
your body's COQ10 level. You see, there are other things that statins
reduce besides cholesterol. If you're on statins next time you go to
the doc ask him why he hasn't prescribed supplemental COQ10... assuming
he knows about it. :-)
Chuck Norcutt
On 9/18/2011 9:19 AM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> Has that been established statistically?
> Do you have the numbers? :-)
> Andrew Fildes
> afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
> On 18/09/2011, at 10:28 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>
>> I remember reading that
>> clearly false statements were not uncommon.
>
--
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