New research reveals a startling connection between cholesterol and mortality risk…but the “experts” still don’t get it!
You know the old saying, “See Rome (or Paris) and die” — but if you eat like you’re in Rome (or even Paris), chances are you won’t be dying anytime soon. That’s because the Italians and French aren’t dangerously fixated on cholesterol “management” like we are in the U.S. And they have half the rate of chronic diseases that U.S experts claim they should suffer based on the kinds of foods they eat. (These “experts” call this the “French Paradox” because they never have been able to explain it away with their faulty theories.)
The Italian and French medical establishments also aren’t as enthralled with statin drugs as their U.S. counterparts are. Statins are approved by the FDA for their ability to lower cholesterol, and that they do. It has led to the single biggest blockbuster windfall for big pharma of all time.
But what does lowering cholesterol really do for your heart, your health, or your longevity?
Why you should avoid cholesterol-lowering statins
To provide some answers to those questions, a new study published in the British Medical Journal looked back through the data from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment that was conducted from 1966 to 1973.1
The Minnesota research was the largest and probably most carefully done study on the hypothesis that saturated fats and cholesterol could increase heart disease.
The data from this study show that cutting and replacing saturated fats does indeed lower cholesterol. But that reduced cholesterol does not lead to lower death rates. In fact, greater reductions in cholesterol are associated with higher death rates.
This is just one more example of what I’ve been telling you all along…and what mainstream research has finally begun to reveal over the past year.
Bottom line: Controlled clinical trials do not provide any evidence to support the 40 years of U.S. government dietary misguidance about how cutting saturated fats and reducing cholesterol would improve your health and help you live longer.
Just the opposite, in fact. The research is increasingly showing that the lower your cholesterol, the greater your risk of death.
Two large studies show how deadly lowering your cholesterol can be
One reason the BMJ researchers decided to take another look at the Minnesota Coronary Experiment is because of what they discovered when they checked back on the Sydney Diet Heart Study from the same time period.
As I reported in my Daily Dispatch e-letter back in 2013 (“Switch signals on fats–again”), the BMJ researchers revealed previously unpublished data from the Sydney study that belatedly showed replacing saturated fats (from butter, cheese, and meat) with polyunsaturated fats (from vegetable oils) did lower cholesterol — but it also significantly increased deaths from heart disease…and from all other causes.
Ironically, the Sydney study was originally done to try and prove the faulty hypothesis that replacing saturated with unsaturated fats in the diet would somehow reduce heart disease. However, very suspiciously, the original researchers never published all their data.
Given this experience, it only made sense for the BMJ researchers to go back and discover what the original data actually shows from the Minnesota study from the same period of time.
But even though that data shows, just like in the Sydney study, that reducing cholesterol boosts your risk of death, mainstream medicine is still not getting the message.
Case in point: The BMJ published a comment from Professor Jeremy Pearson of the British Heart Foundation about the new study, which shows just how clueless the mainstream is. “This is an interesting study which shows that decreasing your intake of saturated fat can have a positive impact in helping lower cholesterol,” Professor Pearson said. “However, more research and longer studies are needed to assess whether or not eating less saturated fat can reduce your risk of cardiovascular death.”
If you are waiting for the other shoe to drop, in terms of a comment from Professor Pearson about how the rest of the study showed a link between lowered cholesterol and higher mortality, don’t hold your breath. It sounds like that shoe is on the foot that is firmly planted in the professor’s mouth.
Despite all of the emphasis placed and money spent on so-called “evidence-based” research, the mainstream can’t or won’t recognize the evidence on cholesterol — even when it has been around since 1973. After all, that additional research Professor Pearson is waiting for can’t get much longer or more thorough than the Minnesota study that lasted seven years and included 9,570 people!
Why the new fad of “evidence-based” medicine can sabotage good health
Dr. John Ioannidis, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, addressed this issue in an article published in the March issue of the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.2
“As EBM (evidence-based medicine) became more influential, it was also hijacked to serve agendas different from what it originally aimed for,” Dr. Ioannidis wrote. “Influential randomized trials are largely done by and for the benefit of the industry. Meta-analyses and guidelines have become a factory, mostly also serving vested interests. National and federal research funds are funneled almost exclusively to research with little relevance to health outcomes. “
That’s why all the bland and blind talk about the importance of so-called “evidence-based medicine” among the mainstream medical minions never impressed me.
That’s also why I just laugh when mainstream doctors and researchers claim they need more studies before they can recommend anything about diet and dietary supplementation…other than the (100% wrong) advice about saturated fats they had been giving out for 40 years.
And that’s why you don’t need to wait for “more research” on the link between cholesterol and your risk of death. The real evidence is already in.
In fact, I believe most people would be better off with less medical “advice,” less medical “care,” and less medical “research” from the sick system we have now.
Fortunately, there is still plenty of good, independent research being published showing the benefits of nutrition and dietary supplements for heart health, general health, and longevity.
And just because the mainstream minions and heart associations don’t read, or can’t understand, the evidence from their own research doesn’t mean I won’t keep telling you about it.
In fact, you can read about the natural solutions for real heart health in my special report The Insiders’ Guide to a Heart Healthy and Statin Free Life. You can order a copy by clicking here or by calling 1-800-682-7319 and asking for order code EOV2S8AA.
SOURCES:
[1] “Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis: analysis of recovered data from Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968-73).” BMJ 2016;353:i1246.
[2] http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(16)00147-5/fulltext