A recent medical tip to readers sparked a quick reaction. It reported a study that those with higher blood cholesterol lived longer. This is contradictory to everything we’ve been told for years.
The Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care reported research that will shock millions of North Americans who ingest, faithfully, cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Scientists analyzed the cholesterol level of 120,000 adults in Denmark. They discovered that men age 60 to 70 with high levels of blood cholesterol showed a 32 per cent decreased risk of death. Women fared better with a 41 per cent reduced risk of death.
To add even more injury to the “killer cholesterol” theory, these researchers also discovered that higher levels of LDL cholesterol — the dreaded “bad cholesterol” — was also associated with a decreased risk of death.
Even more astonishing was the fact that low cholesterol in young people was linked to an increased risk of dying. High triglycerides, however, increased the risk of death.
This isn’t the only report that has contradicted the widely held belief that we should all strive for lower and lower cholesterol levels.
For instance, Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the department of cardiovascular medicine at Yale University, reported in 1994 that old people with low cholesterol died twice as often from heart attack as did old people with high cholesterol levels.
Eleven studies of elderly people came up with a similar result. But researchers repeatedly tell me that reports that disagree with the current high cholesterol condemnation never get published nor make headlines.
But there are more ways to end your days on Earth than by coronary death. For instance, Professor R. Jacobs from the division of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota analyzed 19 studies of 68,000 deaths. Jacobs and his colleagues concluded that high cholesterol protects against dying of respiratory diseases and gastrointestinal problems.
In another study, Jacobs and Dr. Carlos Iribarren followed 100,000 healthy individuals in the San Francisco area for 15 years. They found that those who had low cholesterol at the beginning of the study were more often admitted to hospital to be treated for infectious disease.
In its July 1992 issue, Archives of Internal Medicine reported a study of 351,000 men. This showed that low cholesterol levels were associated with increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke, liver disease, pancreatic cancer, digestive disease, cirrhosis of the liver and alcoholism.
Of course, it’s logical for readers to question how a high blood cholesterol level could be an asset for longer life. After all, family doctors, cardiologists and television ads tell us over and over that lower blood cholesterol is the be-all-and-end-all solution to prevention of the country’s No. One killer, heart attack.
Economists have a saying: “Follow the money if you want to find the answer to a perplexing problem.”
The fact is that billions of dollars have been flowing every year to brain-wash doctors and the public about the virtues of CLDs, and this is not going to stop anytime soon.
I believe history will show that the use of CLDs is the most unethical and most dangerous experiment that has ever been conducted by doctors on millions of unsuspecting people.
Online: docgiff.com
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