Heart Disease - The Fallacy of the Cholesterol Cause

The notion that diet is a factor in heart disease and the birth of cholesterol levels being a key component of the theory dates back to the 1950’s. Ancel Keys, an American scientist did a study that compared mortality through heart disease with fat consumed in the diet. His study found a direct correlation, Keys ended up on the cover of Time Magazine, the government’s wheels were set in motion and the low fat diet necessity train began to roll. However, it later came to light that Keys correlating results from seven countries were hand picked, he neglected to mention the other fifteen countries in the study that showed no correlation! Some scientific study that is…choosing to ignore data that doesn’t fit the hypothesis you want to prove. The twenty two countries all together showed no pattern to meet his claim. But by then it was too late, the low fat train was at full speed.rnSince then, the general consensus that we are all taught, that seems to be set in stone, is that if you lower your cholesterol, you will lower your risk of heart disease. But is that really the case? How can it be when respected studies since have shown this theory to have no basis whatsoever? Take the Framingham Heart Study, set up in 1948, in Framingham Massachusetts, their research has studied health data from three generations of families, participant numbers are over fifteen thousand people. In 1970 the study announced that "there is, in short, no suggestion of any relation between diet and the subsequent development of coronary heart disease in the study group." Then in 1997, when commenting on whether heart disease deaths had affected the results of a study on strokes, the Framingham Study announced that they found no association of fat intake and coronary heart disease.rnConsidering this, why is the fat intake and heart disease connection continually thrown at us in so many ways? We can leave that to Dr George V Mann, a physician and biochemist who was involved in The Framingham Study to comment on. He said "The diet-heart hypothesis has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons or pride, profit and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprises, food companies and even governmental agencies. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century.” And this is from a guy doing the study that was aiming to reinforce the hypothesis, not some cynic trying to shoot it down.rnSo if it's not about the fat that we eat, what is it about?rnEnter oxidation and inflammation. It's really an issue of excessive insulin in the bloodstream from our modern diet of high carbohydrates, e.g. grains, sugars and starches.rnAs these carbohydrates are converted into glucose in the bloodstream the pancreas secretes insulin to release that glucose which is toxic to the blood. However, the amount of carbohydrates that we consume these days produces huge excesses of insulin.rnNow, these high levels of insulin create two occurrences, which are key to the accumulation of arterial plaque, which causes heart disease. Firstly, the insulin promotes an increase in the production of small dense LDL particles. LDL is low-density lipoprotein, which carries cholesterol produced in the liver to do its numerous jobs throughout the body. Secondly, insulin causes chemical changes to alter the LDL.rnSo there is more of this LDL and it is chemically altered. Such a chemical alteration is seen as foreign by the body, so the body tries to remove it by oxidation – a cellular battle to break down the unnatural LDL. But this process makes the artery walls sticky, so they gather up the oxidised product – a lipid core of plaque. This accumulates in the wall of the artery. The oxidation process causes the surrounding area to become inflamed – redness, swelling and heating occur.rnResearch has shown that the cause of heart disease in the main is excessive oxidation of LDL cholesterol and the inflammation that occurs as a result around the arteries.rnIf the lipid plaque deposit in the arterial wall compromises the inner diameter of the artery or continues growing to block blood flow, or ruptures to fill the artery with its fatty core, then the blood will clot depriving the heart of oxygen. A heart attack is the result.rnThe amount of cholesterol in our blood is irrelevant, the total LDL is irrelevant. Hence the futility of lowering cholesterol through drugs like statins, which have had no impact on the level of heart disease mortality. LDL is harmless without the oxidation process and resulting inflammation. It's the excessive insulin from a diet high in carbohydrates that's the key factor. So the diet is very important, but not in the way that was suggested when the issue of diet and heart disease began to come to light back in the 1950's.