The Benefits of High Cholesterol?

NHone

Hi: There are a couple of things you might want to consider. First, cholesterol is not ever bad unless it is oxidized. Second, while I am sure there can be a case made for the correlation of increased cholesterol and heart disease, this is not always the case. One might check the Honolulu heart study. 50% of the patients with heart attack/disease had high cholesterol, while 50% did not. Also in France, a test had results of higher cholesterol associated with increased life span. (these were VERY long term tests). Also, one point that many doctors are to quick to jump to the conclusion is that cholesterol is the contributing problem. When there are underlying problems cholesterol is usually increased. This does not mean that cholesterol is the problem. Most doctors do not put a bandaid on a bullet hole, they treat the problem. Therefore they should find the underlying cause of the high cholesterol. It might just end up that the body is trying to repair itself by its own natural methods. I believe in the book by Dr Ravnskovs he might have put in a good example. You see firemen at fires. The larger the fire the more firemen are present. Therefore firemen cause fires. (I don't believe that we think that this conclusion is true....the same with cholesterol. Unfortunately at present cholesterol has the role of the messenger...and most doctors feel the messenger should be shot.

zip2play

finres,

Imagine a world where exactly 10% of a population will have a heart attack in a set time period. If these victims were checked afterwards and 50% were found to have high cholesterol, what conclusions would a wise man draw?

rahod

Did you get this point from the article?

"The case for the causal role of cholesterol in heart disease
is overwhelming. It is supported by the clear dose-response
relationship between serum cholesterol and heart disease;
the substantially reduced cardiac and total mortality when
heart patients are put on a severely fat restricted diet;
the dose-response relationship between cholesterol reduction
and heart disease seen in the drug trials; by animal models;
and by an understanding of the most probable mechanisms by
which most heart attacks are produced by coronary artery
lesions."

NHone

a wise man would draw this conclusion....There is no statistical difference in the two groups. Therefore this variable is not relavent. You could substitute red hair/blonde hair, blue eyes/greeneyes, black/white. The conclusion would be the same, there is another factor causing the heart attacks.

rahod

HMMM.. ...think again . The *universe* of the causes of any event (heart attack in this case) are potentially numerous. If you found that 50% of people experiencing this event had a particular condition (ie, high cholesterol), would you not conclude that it was more than *chance* (statistically significant) that this conditon is related to having the event? In fact , it has been statistically demonstrated that LOWERING cholesterol reduces the risk of heart attack as well. You my friend are in MASSIVE DENIAL and NOTHING will convince you. Take my word..you are WRONG. I offer you a challege>>>>can you describe what type of evidence would convince you as to the *real cause* of heart attacks? Provide me with an statistical example.

zip2play

finres,

You need to brush up on your statistics...

Mybe THIS extreme will convince you. TWO people out of a thousand have high serum LDL levels, other 998 are below average. Of these thousand people, 4 have a heart attack and die in the subsequent 5 year period. It is found that 2 of the 4 deaths were the two with high cholesterol.

Does THAT illustration yield anything useful to you?

ARIZONA73

Well, if you are going to conclude that since 50% of people with high cholesterol are heart attack statistics, then where do the other 50% come from? I believe that there are other underlying factors which leads to the deposition of plaque, regardless of total and LDL cholesterol levels.

Joel M. Kauffman, Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, made this interesting observation in his article "Statin Drugs- A Critical Review of the Risk/Benefit Clinical Research":

"Many well-funded sources attempt to justify the wide use of statin drugs to lower TC and LDL by citing references in support of the claims that high levels of TC and LDL have been correlated with cardiovascular disease. Such claims are unfounded, since high TC and LDL are well-correlated with age, which is a risk factor. With age removed, there is almost no correlation, and certainly none that allows a worthwhile prediction of risk for a given individual."

zip2play

I give up!

brimormsbp

high cholesterol is associated with premature death. intervention to reduce cholesterol prolongs life. fact.

try looking at the many positive trials of statins eg 4S

ARIZONA73

I think it's important to keep in mind the fact that cholesterol is NOT the primary cause of atherosclerosis. Plaque is deposited in response to inflammation, or lesions which form in coronary arteries. If conditions do NOT favor this response, then lipoproteins will not stick, no matter what your cholesterol level is. Conventional medicine's only response is to attack a substance which is merely attempting to repair the damage. However, this approach fails to address the primary cause. When you eat a nice, juicy steak, the fat you consume isn't going to just attach itself to the walls of healthy arteries like some magnet. No, no, no! It just doesn't happen that way. If it did, we'd all be dropping like flies. So, I think it would make much more sense to concentrate more on the primary cause of heart disease instead of just messing around with cholesterol numbers. Maybe then we'll be able to make some real progress in our fight against heart disease.

rahod

How do account for the fact that>>1) LOWERING cholesterol REDUCES the incidence of heart attacks and 2)HIGHER levels of cholesterol at ANY GIVEN AGE are statistically associated with a greater incidence of cardiovascular disease?

rahod

I suggest that anyone who disputes the role of high cholesterol (ie, LDL) as a primary cause of cardiovascular disease, read this article..especially page 5 of 13 on this pdf.

link:

[url]http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/atp3upd04.pdf[/url]

ARIZONA73

To simply use terms such as high cholesterol, high LDL, versus low cholesterol and low LDL doesn't really say much as far as actual risk. There are certainly other important variables to consider. As an example, suppose you were asked to evaluate the following two individuals in terms of risk? In your opinion, which one is at highest risk?

Case 1

TC 250
HDL 90
LDL 145
Trig. 75
Lp(a) 10



Case 2

TC 160
HDL 40
LDL 90
Trig. 150
Lp(a) 35

rahod

No doubt there are other important variables, but that doesn't take away from the fact that there is a direct correlation between LDL level and coronary heart disease. Just look at the studies and data in the article I just refered to. If you choose to ignore that data , so be it.