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The Greatest Scam in Medical History
Before we get into today’s message, we wanted to pass this along. Many THB readers have asked us the best way to help the people of Haiti.
Many reliable and worthwhile organizations are offering support. But you may be wondering which cause will put your donation directly into the relief effort. Our colleague Byron King – who writes for The Daily Reckoning – notes that the Hospital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) near Port-au-Prince is a worthy recipient of your dollars. This hospital is not only one of the few medical centers not seriously damaged by the earthquake, it is also the only hospital in the region with surgical suites.
“As the flow of people urgently seeking care increases over the next few days and weeks, our resources will be pushed to the breaking point. It is critical that we receive support to help us continue with our mission,” writes HAS Managing Director Ian Rawson on the hospital’s blog. (You can read more about the HAS relief efforts here.)
You can make an immediate impact with your donation at www.hashaiti.org.
Alex Green – Investment Director of The Oxford Club – notes that the International Rescue Committee is also accepting donations. According to the IRC site - www.theirc.org – 90% of funds go directly to programs and services.
If you have even a few dollars to give, please do so. Every penny helps.
Maria Dolgova
Associate Publisher
The Greatest Scam in Medical History
The writer and social critic, H.L. Mencken once wrote, “For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable and wrong.”
Our ancestors believed that the stars rotated around the Earth. From our perspective, it made perfect sense. Of course, the idea was completely wrong. In fact, throughout history, people have believed ridiculous things. And we believed them so strongly you would have been persecuted for suggesting otherwise.
So little has changed…
Today’s gospel truth is that excess saturated fat in the diet clogs the arteries and causes heart disease. The only problem with this medical “fact” is that it isn’t a fact at all. It is a fraudulent and faulty hypothesis from the 1950s that has never been proven.
I didn’t plan to write about this topic today. But I had to speak up when I saw the same article in four major publications this week. The headline: “Leading Surgeon Wants to Ban Butter.”
Dr. Shyam Kolvekar, a heart surgeon at University College London Hospital, says that by the time he sees many of his patients, it is too late. Their hearts and cardiovascular system are too damaged for repair. He wants to stop heart disease before it starts by getting people to limit saturated fat in the diet. And to get the ball rolling, he suggests “banning butter.”
Kolvekar is particularly worried that heart disease is growing rapidly in the younger population. “It’s because most kids start the day with some toast and butter,” he says. “Porridge is a much better alternative.”
Why the butter and not the toast? Two slices of bread contain the equivalent carbohydrates of five teaspoons of sugar. And elevated blood sugar has been directly associated with heart disease. But more on that later…
Dr. Kolvekar also suggests replacing natural butter with the industrially-processed, chemically-modified yellow-colored substance known as margarine. Great idea, doc! In the interest of disclosure, the Daily Mail notes that, “Dr. Kolvekar’s comments were issued by KTB, a public relations company that works for Unilever, the maker of Flora margarine.”
Well, that might explain his motivations. But what about the veracity of his argument? And what can explain the last fifty years of propaganda against saturated fat? Is it really the villain it has been made out to be?
I asked our own heart-health expert, Dr. Dwight Lundell, for his thoughts. Dr. Lundell knows the heart and cardiovascular system as well as anyone on the planet. During his 25-year career in medicine, he performed more than 5,000 open heart surgeries. And for much of that time, he toed the party line on saturated fat and cholesterol. But his own experience – and a closer review of the literature – caused him to reject the premise. He later wrote a book on the REAL causes of heart disease, which you can learn more about here.
Dr. Lundell writes, “One wants their heart surgeon to be exacting. But, in the case of Dr. Shyam Kolvekar, who called for the banning of butter to prevent the epidemic of heart disease, he is exactly wrong!”
According to Dr. Lundell, “The theory that saturated fat causes heart disease fails on many accounts.” First, it is said that saturated fats raise cholesterol levels in the blood, and elevated cholesterol levels cause heart disease.
Lundell points out that an article published in the American Heart Journal last year, showed that in an examination of 137,000 people admitted to the hospital with heart attack, 70% of them had normal blood cholesterol levels!
It should also be noted that the long-running Framingham Heart Study showed that after the age of 50 (when 90% of all heart attacks occur), lower cholesterol levels are clearly associated with a shorter life expectancy.
But let’s put cholesterol aside for a moment and discuss the purported mass killer, saturated fat. Certainly there must have been conclusive studies and solid evidence that kicked off the campaign against animal fat. Not quite.
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One of the first studies to implicate animal fat in heart disease came in the early 1900s. See if you can spot the flaws in this one. In 1908, Russian scientist, M.A. Ignatovsky fed protein-rich animal foods to a group of rabbits. He soon discovered that the rabbits developed arterial plaques and cardiovascular disease. Researchers discovered that the same thing happens when chickens, guinea pigs and goats eat a high-fat diet.
Later these studies were cited as evidence of a high-fat diet causing heart disease in humans. Hmm… let’s see. All of these animals are obligate herbivores. They evolved eating nothing but plants. They are clearly not designed to eat meat. When we feed them meat and fat it makes them sick. That makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is why researchers extrapolated these results to omnivorous humans.
The Fraud of Ancel Keys Kicks off the Lipid Hypothesis
But the “lipid hypothesis” really gained traction in the 1950s, when physiologist Ancel Keys, Ph.D., published what became known as the Seven Countries Study.
Keys presented a comparison of heart disease mortality and fat intake across seven different countries. His comparison showed a “remarkable relationship.” The countries with the highest fat intake had the highest levels of heart disease. The countries with the lowest fat intake had the lowest levels of heart disease. Those in the middle fell conveniently in between.
At the time, Jacob Yerushalmy, a PhD statistician, at the University of California at Berkeley pointed out that we had data on the amount of fat consumed in 22 countries. So why wasn’t it called the 22 Country Study?
It wasn’t called that, because Ancel Keys started with the conclusion. Then he cherry-picked the countries that matched his pre-conceived notion and threw out the ones that contradicted it. And most of them did! When all 22 countries were analyzed, the “remarkable relationship” remarkably disappeared.
Furthermore, Keys established no causative basis. And he based his conclusions on only two phenomena – dietary fat and heart disease. This did not account for the possibility that something else could have caused the heart disease.
It might seem hard to believe that this flawed and fraudulent study was the genesis of the entire animal-fat-causes-heart-disease movement. Certainly, in the last sixty years, there must be hundreds of controlled studies that prove the link, right?
Not quite… there are NONE!
What about the societies that consume a very high percentage of saturated fat in the diet – groups like the Maasai in Africa or the Inuits in the Arctic North? Do they show signs of heart disease? No, and in fact, quite the opposite is true.
In the 1960s, Vanderbilt University scientist, George Mann, MD, studied the nomadic Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania. These populations consumed a very high saturated fat diet, including drinking the blood of their cattle. Yet they were not only lean and virtually free of heart disease, they also had some of the lowest cholesterol levels ever measured!
Skeptical scientists argued that they must have some sort of hereditary protection. However, British researchers found that when Maasai men moved to the city and began to consume a modern diet, their cholesterol levels skyrocketed!
In an editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1977, Dr. Mann called the cholesterol theory of heart disease “the greatest scam in the history of medicine.”
But let’s get back to those studies… or, more accurately, the lack of studies proving a link between saturated fat and heart disease.
There have been about 30 long-term population studies that have attempted to link saturated fat to heart disease. Of those, only four have shown even the weakest association. And all four had major disqualifications: they were either too small to be significant, they did not isolate the variables properly, or they showed a slight decrease in heart deaths but an increase in death due to cancer.
But population studies are notoriously unreliable anyway. The gold standard among health studies are controlled, randomized trials. And not a single study of this nature has ever shown definitive evidence that saturated-fat consumption leads to heart disease. In fact, many have shown the exact opposite!
Authors of the MR-FIT trial were determined to prove the case. They enrolled 350,000 men, all of whom were considered at high risk of heart disease. In one set of participants, cholesterol consumption was reduced by 42%, saturated fat by 28%, and total calories by 21%.
What happened? Nothing. The authors referred to the results as “disappointing,” stating that “The overall results do not show a beneficial effect on Coronary Heart Disease or total mortality from this multifactor intervention.”
The Women’s Health Initiative was a huge government study, costing almost three quarters of a billion dollars. Among 20,000 women in the study who adhered to a diet low saturated fat diet for eight years, there was no reduction in the rates of heart-disease or stroke.
Then there was the Cochrane Collaboration, in 2000. This group rigorously selected 27 low-fat and cholesterol-lowering trials to review (more than 200 trials were rejected). Their conclusion was that diets low in saturated fat have “no significant effect” on heart attack mortality. Lead researcher Lee Hooper, PhD, said “I was disappointed that we didn’t find something more definitive.”
Or how about something more recent?
This month, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a review of 21 studies. The studies ranged from 5 to 23 years in length and encompassed 347,747 subjects. In the authors’ own words: “Intake of saturated fat was not associated with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD.”
I could go on… and on… and on… but I’ll conclude with this.
In 1988, U.S. Surgeon General’s office decided to end the confusion. They set out to finally prove the causal link between saturated fat and heart disease. After 11 years, the project was abandoned. The Surgeon General’s office stated that they, “did not anticipate fully the magnitude of the additional external expertise and staff resources that would be needed.” Sure! After more than a decade of trying, the government just “just didn’t have the resources.”
Scientists and researchers are supposed to have an open mind. They are not supposed to be dogmatic and swayed by politics and peer pressure. But that is exactly what the majority of scientists and doctors have proven of themselves. It is not terribly surprising. Massive industries and shining scientific careers have been built on this faulty theory.
If it were not so tragic, it would be funny to listen to them explain away contradictory findings and make excuses for why their studies don’t match their hoped-for conclusions. The most common excuses are that the “trial didn’t last long enough” or they “didn’t lower the saturated-fat intake enough.” It seems that option number three never crosses their mind… perhaps the entire hypothesis is wrong!
Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD has called the saturated fat theory of heart disease “one of the greatest and most harmful misconceptions in the history of medicine.” Dr. George Mann called it the “public health diversion of the century.”
And the problem is not just the wasted time and billions of dollars dedicated to an unscientific myth. The bigger problem is that undue focus on the saturated fat bugaboo has stolen attention from the REAL causes of heart disease. And perhaps even worse, is that many of the dietary recommendations to reduce heart disease have actually been shown to CAUSE heart disease (not to mention cancer, diabetes and obesity).
If you truly want to protect yourself from the nation’s number one killer, don’t smoke and reduce your stress levels. At least the medical authorities have gotten those two right. And when it comes to your diet, forget about saturated fat and cholesterol. Here is what you should do instead:
• Consume more monounsaturated fats from sources like olive oil, nuts, avocados and avocado oil
• Cut out the sugar and refined carbohydrates
• Consume more omega-3 fatty acids, from wild game, grass-fed beef and bison, sardines and wild (not farm-raised) salmon. And take an omega-3 fish oil supplement.
• And reduce as much as possible omega-6 fatty acids in your diet. These come primarily from conventionally raised meats, processed foods, fried foods and vegetable and seed oils (corn, soybean, sunflower, cottonseed, etc.)
To Your Health,
Jon Herring
Editor
Total Health Breakthroughs
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Along this line of thinking - get the book; “Why Animals Don’t Get Heart Attacks…but people do” by Matthias Rath, MD. It’s a MUST read!
You must become a seeker of truth - as you cannot afford to trust your health to most “health care professionals.”
What are your thoughts with regard to “the China Study”.
Great article. Most doctors need to read it, but they’ll deny it. They have tried to put me on Lipitor or Crestor, but have fired several doctors for this reason.
Thank you for this good information - Keep telling the world!
Dead right. But it better be saturated fat from grass-fed animals and poultry. It’s the Arachidonic Acid in the saturated fat from feedlot animals and poultry that causes the problem.
Excellent, but brief article. You’re just cracking the surface. Cherry picking is pervasive in the industry (academic/scientific/pharma). When I was a young physiology grad student, my professor insisted that I remove a picture of Hans Selye, taken from a recent issue of Life, from my lab door, because of the antipathy of the head of the (X) Institute towards Selye whom he accused of cherry picking the data for all of his work on stress.
Now, let’s get into vaccines, high blood pressure medicatons, ulcer medications–the list is endless.
Keep up the good work
Patrick… keep in mind that arachidonic acid is a polyunsaturated fat… an omega-6 fatty acid. You are correct that this fat is in abundance in conventionally-raised meats. Too much of it is quite harmful and most of us do get too much. Always best to stick with organic meats raised on their natural diets (grass for cows).
And to Carl… regarding T. Colin Campbell’s book The China Study… I don’t agree with most of his conclusions nor his apparent bias. However, one of the best critiques of the book comes from my acquaintance and occasional THB contributor, Anthony Colpo. Anthony stopped writing on the Internet a few years ago, but much of his material is still available. He is a meticulously rigorous researcher, and his book “The Cholesterol Con” is a must-read on the subject of saturated fat and heart disease (backed up with 1,400 peer-reviewed journal references).
Here is his critique of The China Study: http://www.anthonycolpo.com/the_china_study.html
Best,
Jon
When writing those updates, it might be a good idea to be certain to include the truth about Coconut oil. Even some people in the countries that grow and harvest them are under the impression that the cholesterol that is in the coconut oil is high and bad. I’ve even seen these folks on the travel channel, with the guy who travels the world tasting all types of weird foods.
Coconut oil is a ‘plant based fat’ and is extremely healthful and very healing. I was using it and my thinning hair began to grow back.
As Dr. Joesph Mercola states on his site and in his videos, if you cannot eat it, don’t put it on your skin. I’ve been using extra virgin olive oil on my skin and it’s VERY soft. So all the plant based oils are important for many reasons. Problem is, in MI it’s getting more difficult to get virgin coconut oil as they’re sending in the stuff from China with soybean oil in the mix. If they’re gonna do that, why bother?
NOW vitamins has a good shampoo and conditioner which left my hair very soft and none of it fell out when washing it. Harsh chemicals in shampoos are bad with all the chemicals in the water, like fluoride, chlorine, ammonia and lordie knows what else.
Thanks for all the terrific info and please don’t leave nothing out.
I am trying to change from margarine to butter. I guess from what you have said that organic butter would be best. But why are seed oils wrong to use?? I am trying to only use olive oil. From what you have written for some reason you feel that vegetable oils are not good. Corn oil and canola oil I can understand. But why not olive oil??
The China Study is also a cherry picked study and is wrong:
Here are two great articles about it:
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Campbell-Masterjohn.html
Lots of problems with canola and corn and other vegetable oil. Only use Olive and Coconut oil and butter - first pressed and organic.
The Great Con-ola
Canola oil has been both exalted as a wonder oil and condemned as toxic …
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/08/14/con-ola1.aspx
Canola Oil Update
Although canola oil is not a favorite oil with me for a number of reasons …
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/01/23/canola-oil-update.aspx
Since I switched to Olive Oil, Coconut Oil and Butter and stop with vegetable oil, fried food and margarine, my chlolesterol plummeted!
Thanks for the fairly comprehensive article. When I saw my mainstream doc recently, I mentioned that the cholesterol/heart disease/stroke hypothesis had been completely dis-credited and that “No, I still will not take a statin.” He seems to be thinking and doing some online research, because he has stopped pushing the statins and the “You gotta lower your cholesterol” party line. (My LDL had never been higher than 141.) When I told him how much Omega-3 fish oil I was taking, however, he left the office for a minute, then returned and said “The Omega-3 is not effective enough, so take the (rat poison) pills as before.” I assume he checked it out online, so at least he is thinking outside the “party line.”
Thanks again and keep up the good myth-buster work.
MaryLou,
Olive oils is made from the pressed flesh of olives. It is also mostly monounsaturated fat.
Vegetable and seed oils (sunflower seed, cottonseed, etc.) are primarily polyunsaturated omega-6… a fat which we get all too much of in the modern diet and which is implicated in inflammation, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, macular degeneration, etc.
Jon
Jan,
I mistakenly neglected coconut oil in the list of healthy fats and oils. For the record, coconut oil does not have cholesterol, however. Cholesterol is only found in animal foods.
Coconut oil is primarily a type of saturated fat known as lauric acid. This fat is immune-boosting, anti-viral and is burned very rapidly for energy, so these calories are not likely to be stored as bodyfat.
Because coconut oil mostly consists of highly stable saturated fat, it is an excellent oil to cook with… and tastes delicious.
And finally, it is VERY energy dense… I know endurance athletes that swear by it and eat it by the spoonful during races.
Personally, I don’t need to race to enjoy a spoonful!
Jon
I am SO thrilled that someone is making all this stuff public… I am no longer feeling quite so alone up on that soap box! I have been inundating all my friends with your articles… I didn’t think I could be surprised any more by big business, greed, and the power of the dollar sign until I read about floride and the BPA’s in the lining of cans… and this cholesterol scare is a deadly farce… we NEED cholesterol!
We need YOU…
This is a very complete addressing of the fallacy about saturated fats, Issues that Duane Graveline and dr. Beatrice Golumb have been raising for years. and the only thing you missed was the fact that cholesterol is not just ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but there are several subsets of it. I was put on Statins for 7 years which destroyed my liver’s ability to produce ubiquinol and as a result? I take a gram of fat soluble c010 a day.
But rather than preaching to the choir? it’d be far better if you hunted down some of the proponents of fallacious theories and publicly engaged them in debate.
jccampb
Dear John,
I am extremely glad to read your article that is a fight against industrial propaganda. Dr Lundell is a gem, and so are you. I came across a couple of sites featuring Dr Kovelkar’s article. There was no provision to comment. I sensed the guy prostituted his position and allowed to be captured by the industry. He is only one of the many hired ghost writers to produce research write-ups under industry guidelines and even write practice guidelines doctors follow thinking doing good placing their trust
in those who did not earn them.
I wish to draw your attention to the listed cooking oils namely cotton-seed oil. This is not vegetable oil, it is not the oil from anything we eat like olives, grapes etc. We don’t eat cotton. But the crucial thing is this: cotton is susceptible to severe insect attack and profuse spraying carried out by growers to control them. The spray residues in the seed of course contaminate the oil and toxic to human consumption. The regulators are complicit in this crime allowing it on the market and restaurants and food industry outfits favour it since it is cheep and advantageous fore their needs. I will be soon very unpopular with some friends who are involved with my ethnic club putting on popular meals yet the members and guests are ignorant of the oil used. A week ago I sent a letter to them with evidence and alternatives. Haven’t heard back. I dare-say they would resent my eye-opening information and would retort that it is not illegal to use, it is not banned. I am planning to write an article in my ethnic press here in Melbourne to educate the public.
Many good doctors are captured by the industry, mine too I hired some 6 years ago. He baulked at some of the information I took to him adhering to his request that they must came from reputable sources. He said he is not convinced. Said he read them, but I know he is fibbing, at best he just skimmed through, found threatening and ignored it. Thinking outside the square is uncomfortable I guess and he is concerned about repercussions to his career or even legal implications. Was not willing to hear my offer how could he practice safely and smartly avoiding what he feared. I am still trying to educate him, initially he was open to and said doctors learn from patients too.
Wishing you the energy and dedication to continue. May your God go with you, be well!
joseph.
Excellent article. Weston Price did this research starting early in the 1930s. Most everything that you talk about in Total Health Breakthroughs and in Kelly’s publication, Your Plate, Your Fate, he proved by looking at various cultures living this way. Some of these people live to over 100 years. Still it’s not good enough research for our country to push these theories. It always has to be “Follow the Money”.
At least some of our doctors like Dwight Lundell, Al Sears, Joseph Mercola, Carolyn Dean and Mike Adams (not a doctor but he may as well be…)
As Dr. Andrew Saul and Dr. Abram Hoffer write, if your doc won’t listen to reasonable nutrition information, than fire your doctor and doctor yourself.
January 20, 2010
Dear Mr. Herring,
I thank you very much Mr. Herring for stepping up to the
plate and exposing this medical fraud concerning cholesterol.
We must all try to eat organically produced food. All the industrialized food in the supermarkets are filled with toxic, carcinogenic ingredients and is killing millions of people every year. I have gone “organic” for more than 15 years now and I have been able to bring myself back from the brink of death caused by that toxic food. I also paid more than $4,000.00 to purchase for myself a LeveLuk SD Series water filtering system giving me a PH9.5 Kangen drinking water. Most city waters are filled with fluoride and chlorine–carcinogenic substances–that are killing people right and left.
If you want to stay alive today you must take your health into your own hands or you will be dead at a very early age. If you want to live a healthy life and stay away from diseases not just of the heart, but of all the degenerative diseases that are rampant in our society today, then stay away from the deadly drugs of the pharmaceutical industries and the industrialized food in the supermarkets. Our contemporary doctors have become “drug pushers” for these pharmaceutical industries.
I get the best Coconut Oil from Tropical Traditions in the U.S. It’s expensive but most definitely worthwhile. Speaking of butter, read what Dr. William C. Douglas of the Daily Dose and many other doctors of Alternative Medicine say on the Internet about it. Because of today’s butter industries, what they have done to our butter is apparently just as bad as the margarine for our health.
Keep up the good work Mr. Herring. Your exposing this fraud for what it is is very refreshing to me and gives me a sense of hope in humanity after all. Speaking of exposing FRAUDS Mr. Herring, you have a broad range of topics to jump into beside the frauds in today’s Medicine carried out by the pharmaceutical industries. You could also tackle the fraud in the monetary systems throughout the world, the fraud in the economic systems of the world, the fraud in the “greenhouse effects” of the deceived environmentalists, the fraud in the political systems throughout the world, add infinity! Good Luck and may God bless you Sir!
Honktonk
Great stuff! Any medical practitioner who truely serves the interests of his patients must be aware of scams in the
medical industry, esp. those created by the Big Pharma and
the Administration of health.
Eggs are rich in arachidonic acid, so it makes sense to cut back on eggs. Big Pharma are now pushing statins for high CRP, the usual marker for inflammation; the easiest way to reduce CRP is to take vitamin C - most animals make their own; a dog weighing 120 pounds would make 3-4 grams a day, a pregnant goat about 17 grams a day, & indeed, Linus Pauling took 17 grams a day. Exercise reduces CRP as well as blood sugar, & the length of time doing PACE exercise is quite sufficient.
Dear Honktonk,
you highlighted some more issues and the criminal activity of the health and food industry. I wish to add to your post about butter: the criticism of butter is valid but for the wrong reason; what passes as milk and butter today is what the problem is. Not butter per se as saturated milk-fat. Free range animals grazing on uncontaminated pastures and looked after as they were some 60 plus years ago before industrial farming and animal production corrupted the occupation as lifestyle the produce, the harvest, the food animals including chicken, duck, turkey and fish were natural and wholesome. Of course parasites existed but spraying was done intelligently using non-synthetic chemicals that did not penetrate the skin of the fruit and left no residues by the time harvesting or picking time. Information provided how many days or weeks away to stop spraying. There was no systemic chemicals that entered the plants circulatory system.
Local and regional markets disappeared, “fresh apples” are 2 years old from cold storage with controlled atmosphere and mixed sometimes with current harvest. The soil is dead i.e.: depleted or absent bacterial life the repeated planting of monoculture instead crop rotations, chemical fertilising instead organic manuring and compost resulted in contaminated and nutrition-poor inferior produce but with shiny exterior. Feed-lot-imprisoned cattle, pigs and caged chicken this cruel practice also stressing the animals whose immune system overwhelmed needs medications.
The antibiotics added to endanger human health as well as resistant strains of bacteria developed. Grazing animals like cattle fed pelleted food, grains and sometimes ground up refuse from abattoirs totally foreign to their digestive system! As economic imperatives drive the business the greed hit upon the idea to bulk up the chicken pellets by adding 30% chicken manure to their food!Farmed fish (few exceptions) especially inland pools are overcrowded, pellet-fed gets sick and medicated, very low or non existent omega 3 content.- Organic farming and healthy raising of animals are derided and the obscenity of research findings that industrially produced vegetables, fruits and animals for food are nutritionally no different then the free range, naturally grown and raised one. I highly recommend Sir Albert Howard AN AGRICULTURAL TESTAMENT volume. Instructive about healthy produce and animals. Our apathy exploited by lazy and corrupt political and regulatory authority keeps the statusquo to our peril. We are willing victims helping them to dig our grave!
be well! josep
This article should be ‘prescribed’ to all government ‘Health’ ministers! Just one problem they wouldn’t understand it if they were to read it. Doctors [GPs]in the UK wouldn’t have the time to read it as they are so overburdened with government red-tape, plus reps visits, and the problems of the obese. Also those who did read it, understand, and believe this truth, would be seriously discouraged from ’singing from a different hymn sheet’ to that which the government choose to write.
My grandparents have eaten bacon, butter, meat their whole lives and lived long lives 96, 90, and my grandmother turned 100 last April–great article–thanks
It is the RESPONSIBILITY of the individual to become a savvy medical consumer. Sound information stripped of product hype makes me better informed.
I am so happy to read insightful, useful information as presented here. It’s changed my life.
Finally!
At last, a thorough and informative summary of the extensive
evidence against the dangers of high fat diets, and of the false interpretation of the relationship between cholesterol levels and heart disease.
Excellent!
George F. Ellis, PhD
I suspected what you said was true about the fraudulent results.Usually if you follow the money trail from spokesman of a product there is a direct conflict of interest.
Thank for share this info.
BC Canada
I am surprised that after debunking the saturated fat theory, you give recommendations that don’t include something like “go ahead, eat a little butter,” but only recommend monounsaturated fats and omega-3’s.
I would also like to know more about nut oils — I don’t remember seeing them listed as non-omega-6 fatty acids, which at least comprise olive and avocado oils. Does that mean any of the following are monounsaturated: walnut oil, peanut oil, other nut oils?
Also,if I already subscribe to Total Health Breakthroughs, does that mean I can’t get “The Secrets of Anti-Aging for Life”?
Cecil,
I thought the recommendation that butter is a healthful food was implicit, given the nature of the entire article. Furthermore I did say, “don’t worry about saturated fat and cholesterol.”
However, I don’t recommend just any butter. Opt for that which comes from organically raised, grass-fed cows. I have a tub of it in the refrigerator right now, and it is almost orange it is so yellow. Real butter is full of nutrients.
Also note that peanuts are NOT nuts, technically they are legumes. Also, peanut oil is a rich source of omega-6 fatty acids. It should be avoided. By “nut” oils, I am primarily referring to walnut and macadamia nut oils.
Best,
Jon
very interesting information. The myths relating to health spread by commercial interests should be brougt to public notice through such articles
Kolvekar is a disgrace to his profession! He should be investigated by the GMC and NHS. This guy, ‘a leading surgeon’ has no evidence supporting his hypothesis plus he is not really known, more a publicity seeking average guy.
It’s hard to believe that Kolvekar comes out with this nonsense at the same time as respectable lipid researchers have just published a paper showing there is absolutely no effect of Saturated fat on heart disease.
The problem is with refined carbohydrates.
Read if for yourselves here.
http://metabolismsociety.org/App_Themes/Images/AboutFat/Siri-Tarino%20SAFA%20CVD%20Risk.pdf
Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease1–5
Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu, and Ronald M Krauss
Remember also that The American Journal of Nutrition is NOT a lightweight publication and HU and KRAUSS are people who would not put their names to anything they cannot prove.
For a very long time I was suspect of the “bad butter” image. I have never stopped using butter.
I concur that one of the leading causes of heart attack is stress. I recall working in a coronary care ICU that most of those patients had been in states of ” great stress ” prior to their admission.
Thanks for speaking up … on all the things that you speak up …..on.
An interesting article, which was forwarded to me by a reader.
I would like to add that this same person wanted to know if I am in any way related to Jon Herring. This inquiry was caused by his article wherein he mentioned visiting his brother in Panama, which happens to be where I was raised. I know that the relationship does not exist, but do wonder if Jon or his parents lived in Panama at one time.
Hi John,
My brother served in the Peace Corps in Panama for several years. I visited him there and spent a few weeks. And while I have traveled a good bit in Central America, both my brother and I were born and raised here in the States.
Jon