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New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

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Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#111

Post by Syzygies »

This is parallel to the question of vitamin D and COVID. There's a strong correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID mortality, yet taking vitamin D doesn't help. Conjecturally, it's the genetic cause of vitamin D deficiency that increases COVID mortality.

I had been taking Clemastine and vitamin D. I asked a former student now a doctor at the center of the COVID response whether these would interfere with my vaccine. She said to stop Clemastine on the off chance that one study was on to something, but there was no reason to take or stop taking vitamin D.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#112

Post by tsimionescu »

123409871234 wrote: post #101
superqd wrote: post #64

So much nutrition research is all correlation and no causation. Statements like this, which over-infer, kill me: "There is little doubt that people with high cholesterol have an increased risk of disease." It's just as valid to say that people with heart disease are more likely to have high cholesterol. When all you have is correlation, there is a heart disease group, and a high cholesterol group, and all you shown w…

We know that high cholesterol is a cause of heart disease rather than a mere correlation because people with genetic Hypercholesterolemia have a rate of heart disease 10-20x that of the general population, independent of other risk factors: https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2020/06/01...

Do we know that people with hypercholesterolemia don't just have a heart/blood vessel/metabolic defect that also causes high cholesterol?

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#113

Post by tsimionescu »

ncmncm wrote: post #80
Geee wrote: post #57

This guy has been arguing for years that it is sugar (fructose actually) that increases the "bad" LDL in your blood stream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Robert Lustig is right that fructose (half of common sugar) is responsible for a variety of ills: exactly the ones Americans die of, by the millions. There is a lot of Lustig material on youtube, all of it excellent, all thoroughly grounded in rigorous experimental science. We need more Robert Lustigs. The normal metabolic route is that excess fructose, beyond what the liver can afford to process immediately or store…

But aren't statins successful in preventing heart disease, in clinical trials?

My understanding was that other classes of medicine that reduce serum cholesterol levels have shown no effects on heart disease in clinical trials.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#114

Post by sjwright »

123409871234 wrote: post #101
superqd wrote: post #64

So much nutrition research is all correlation and no causation. Statements like this, which over-infer, kill me: "There is little doubt that people with high cholesterol have an increased risk of disease." It's just as valid to say that people with heart disease are more likely to have high cholesterol. When all you have is correlation, there is a heart disease group, and a high cholesterol group, and all you shown w…

We know that high cholesterol is a cause of heart disease rather than a mere correlation because people with genetic Hypercholesterolemia have a rate of heart disease 10-20x that of the general population, independent of other risk factors: https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2020/06/01...

That's still only evidence of correlation, not causation.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#115

Post by ncmncm »

rafaelero wrote: post #52

I can't help but think that there is active effort to halt our understanding of nutrition. I mean, if we still can't say at least that saturated fat is causally related to heart disease, then this whole field is in a very bad place. My hypothesis though, is that this finding has already been established but people keep coming back to this subject to try to adjust it to their lifestyle choices.

They have been trying to establish a causal connection between saturated fat and heart disease for many decades, with no success at all. The failure, despite such effort, is its own evidence. Similarly, others have tried for decades to find evidence for a benefit to taking statins when you haven't had a heart attack, and have again always failed.

There are pretty good reasons to think eating lots of meat is bad for your heart, which they have always blamed on the saturated fat. Now they have having to backtrack, and try to discover what else it is in meat that causes trouble.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#116

Post by lazyasciiart »

Pulcinella wrote: post #63
nradov wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The science in this area is actually pretty low quality from a strict evidence-based medicine standpoint. It mostly consists of poorly controlled observational studies, which are only one step above the woo woo fad diets. We still don't have a solid theoretical framework for how all the pieces fit together.

We (and by we I mean the government) just need to bite the bullet and and pay for a multi billion dollar study where we pay tens of thousands of people to control* and monitor what they eat, exercise, etc for 20 years and just figure this out. None of this “well we had 20 grad students journal what they did for 6 months and this is the result” low quality studies. *Morally correct and ethically of course. I’m not say…

You want to look at the Framingham studies. Not what you're describing, but it's far far above the 20 grad student model https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/study.cgi?...

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#117

Post by lazyasciiart »

boatsie wrote: post #65
pjkundert wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the epic, explosive scale of obesity, diabetes and heart disease under the modern government recommended high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet doesn't give you pause, then.... I just don't know what to say.

It makes you wonder what would happen if they recommended the opposite for a generation, what would happen. Would recommending a ketoish diet improve health outcomes? Or does the recommendation mean almost nothing and people will just eat whatever is sold by big food.

Yes, the recommendations appear to mean almost nothing. Americans didn't even reduce the amount of fat consumed since the government started recommending that they eat less fat. They just haven't increased it as much as they increased the amount of carbs consumed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/did-the-govern...

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#118

Post by flowerlad »

mark-r wrote: post #87
flowerlad wrote: post #53

The idea that it is inflammation, not cholesterol, that is causing heart disease, is not new. See here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-04-15/heart-dis... Also see collection of links at bottom of this article: https://medium.com/@petilon/cholesterol-and-statins-e7d9d8ee... Cholesterol reduction is big business. Pfizer’s Lipitor alone raked in $125 billion between 1996 to 2012. This amount of money can b…

I've always wondered if the reason a daily aspirin prevents heart attacks isn't because it prevents clotting, but because it's an anti-inflammatory.

If true then aspirins may be just as useful as statins while being cheaper and safer. (But you won't see anyone funding a clinical trial to prove this, any time soon!)

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#119

Post by awwaiid »

ncmncm wrote: post #80
Geee wrote: post #57

This guy has been arguing for years that it is sugar (fructose actually) that increases the "bad" LDL in your blood stream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Robert Lustig is right that fructose (half of common sugar) is responsible for a variety of ills: exactly the ones Americans die of, by the millions. There is a lot of Lustig material on youtube, all of it excellent, all thoroughly grounded in rigorous experimental science. We need more Robert Lustigs. The normal metabolic route is that excess fructose, beyond what the liver can afford to process immediately or store…

I'd expect taking statins to then increase risk of heart failure, were it that simple.

Re: New model could explain old cholesterol mystery

#120

Post by wuwuno »

The cholesterol theory doesn't hold water.

The claim is that cholesterol is so sticky that is clogs up the largest arteries of the body, is almost laughable.

If cholesterol is as truly sticky as claimed then it should be clogging up the tiny capillary vessels in the lungs, but it doesn't do that.

Linus Pauling discovered the basis for heart disease, but his theory has been 'discredited' by scientists who have bought and paid for by big pharma.

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