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Cholesterol and mortality: Evidence of a U-shape Relationship

nature.com

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Re: Cholesterol and mortality: Evidence of a U-shape Relationship

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diet is also a factor. Nicotinic Acid (vitamin B3) will lower Cholesterol because it converts cholesterol into hormones starting with Pregnenolone, 500mg of nicotinic acid on an empty stomach or fat free meal is the fastest cheapest way to get a growth hormone boost, if you can handle the prostaglandin 9sun burn) flush! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid_hormone#/media/File:St... Manganese also affects cholesterol…

The part about B3 sounds very interesting but whats a prostaglandin flush?

Your skin turns read and feels hot, like a sunburn. It's the number one side effect of high dose niacin. There are some prescription extended release prescription niacins to reduce that effect, but it still happens. It's very uncomfortable, which is a real problem for something you take daily.

Re: Cholesterol and mortality: Evidence of a U-shape Relationship

#62
I am personally convinced that we have an extremely primitive understanding of human biology and that we use the biomarkers we have (such as cholesterol) in grossly inappropriate ways.

We've seen this story play out time and time again, with everything from vitamin D to HDL/LDL. Low levels of vitamin D are related to everything from depression to heart disease to diabetes, but a recent study gave people over 300% of their daily value of vitamin D every single day for 10 years and found zero improvement on a giant list of health metrics. The same with LDL/HDL: bad LDL/HDL numbers give you dramatically higher risk for heart disease and stroke, so people designed a drug that improves those numbers, but of course it does nothing for your actual health.

We need to fix the actual, underlying causes of disease - lifestyle and diet - not hack the various biomarkers higher or lower until the numbers look good. I'm actually working on a startup to help with this, so if anyone's curious (about using it or just to discuss) my email's in my profile.

Re: Cholesterol and mortality: Evidence of a U-shape Relationship

#63

I am personally convinced that we have an extremely primitive understanding of human biology and that we use the biomarkers we have (such as cholesterol) in grossly inappropriate ways. We've seen this story play out time and time again, with everything from vitamin D to HDL/LDL. Low levels of vitamin D are related to everything from depression to heart disease to diabetes, but a recent study gave people over 300% of…

The classic Italian/French MDs schools told simply 5 time HDL must be lower than LDL, but nowadays people want absolute numbers and interests around diets and meds just push debatable practice that might hold a bit of truth but are so vaporous to be a nonsense.

Also about diet remember that just in the recent history we are shifted, without really scientific proofs behind, from saying "eggs are good, eat them at least one a day" to "egg are bad, limit them"; "blue fish are the protein of the see, eat them much" to "blue fish are pollutants collectors of the see, avoid them| etc, mostly following some lobbyist PR campaign dressed as science so just talking about diet it's complex.

Again, the old school when medicine was not that much a business say: all animal foods help lower the LDL, so eggs, fish, cheese, meat help. Starchy foods (from potatoes to beans, rice, ...) do the opposite. Taking a global look from countries with more animal protein based diets and others with starchy foods based diets confirm that well, but such simple observations is considered flawed because there are too many variables in the middle, while no one really criticize modern studies that actually tend to fail proving anything, just claiming...

Re: Cholesterol and mortality: Evidence of a U-shape Relationship

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part about B3 sounds very interesting but whats a prostaglandin flush?

Your skin turns read and feels hot, like a sunburn. It's the number one side effect of high dose niacin. There are some prescription extended release prescription niacins to reduce that effect, but it still happens. It's very uncomfortable, which is a real problem for something you take daily.

niacinamide (the amide form is post chemical reaction). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niacin#Adverse_effects

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan#/media/File:Tryptop... Tryptophan -> 5HTP -> Serotonin Tryptophan -> Nicotinic acid -> Niacinamide

One thing they dont mention about nicotinic acid is it will soften your bones possibly because prostaglandins uses calcium inside the cell to rebind DNA. So then it becomes a case of take some K2-mk4 to help repair your bones, and thats when people are forced to explore the chemical pathways inside their bodies to compensate for other effects which perhaps they dont want.

Re: Cholesterol and mortality: Evidence of a U-shape Relationship

#65

I am personally convinced that we have an extremely primitive understanding of human biology and that we use the biomarkers we have (such as cholesterol) in grossly inappropriate ways. We've seen this story play out time and time again, with everything from vitamin D to HDL/LDL. Low levels of vitamin D are related to everything from depression to heart disease to diabetes, but a recent study gave people over 300% of…

> not hack the various biomarkers higher or lower until the numbers look good

Goodhart's law is an adage often stated as "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". (Wikipedia)

Re: Cholesterol and mortality: Evidence of a U-shape Relationship

#66

Why is most of that abstract not a graph, or at least a table? Is there some ridiculous constraint to prevent them making it legible?

Figures and tables are just usually not part of an abstract.

They wrote it badly because everyone else does that too? I wonder if scientists will ever improve their illegibility problem. They work so hard to write in such a terrible way for no apparent reason.
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