Myths of Health
No sooner then I start listening to my doctor do I find he is selling me snake oil. I've been measured to have elevated cholesterol (between normal and high) and told to do something about it. In a lot of places you find things about lowering cholesterol and its 'benefits.' For most of those years I ignored the doctors and said I felt fine (I was under 25 with no actual medical problems and still had well cut abs). Last year I decided to listen to my doctor and take steps to lower my cholesterol. No butter, low fat this and that, lean meats, olive oil etc. I had reasoned it was illogical not to eat a better diet since (presumably) my doctor was telling me these suggestions based on scientific facts. All the while I was wondering about a crucial question: "Elevated cholesterol compared to who?" Elevated is a comparative term and so what was the 'yard' stick they where using? I asked around to no avail. Last week I bough the Vol. 11 No.3 issue of Skeptic magazine and read the article "The Truth About Cholesterol" and was pissed!
Most of the articles talks about a book another doctor had wrote called "The Cholesterol Myths" and his brief work (that was published in a medical journal) on 'causal relations' with cholesterol. The simple examples where enough to deprogram my media-conditioned brain to be objective and scientific again. There are too many things to go into but it suffices to say that there is no statistically significant link between cholesterol and heart disease! In fact they really don't know what causes heart disease at all and most deaths due to heart disease are misdiagnosed since autopsies aren't always performed and heart disease is the default! Basically no medical scientist can say (based on actual evidence) that a junk food diet with a mulivitamin is any better than the fruits and vegetable diets being advocated (assuming the multivitamin is effectively absorbed and contains accurate representation of the vitamins). This really seems to be to much to be true (I can eat bacon), until you consider the latest review: obesity.
Yes the CDC (one of the only medical establishments where researchers can't line their pockets with private money, such as the diet industry worth ~43 billion) recently released a review article about the actual dangers of obesity and it basically says it ain't a problem. Obese people are just as likely to die from the same heath problems as non-obese people (with the exception of a possible link to diabetes, but it could be diabetes causes the obesity). Everything else is propaganda. The problem we have is there are smart people who believe strange things and are skilled at defending these beliefs.
Now what should I eat? Well I'm sticking with organic foods for the 'green' reasons and since I don't want to know what extra growth hormones/cannibalism/excessive antibiotics in my animal products or pesticides/insecticides will do to my body. Let the ignorant be the guinea pigs. I'll probably continue with my increased fruit/veggy diet since it will ensure proper vitamins, but no more low fat anything! I'm back on organic 2%, organic cheese etc... now what should I snack on ...
Most of the articles talks about a book another doctor had wrote called "The Cholesterol Myths" and his brief work (that was published in a medical journal) on 'causal relations' with cholesterol. The simple examples where enough to deprogram my media-conditioned brain to be objective and scientific again. There are too many things to go into but it suffices to say that there is no statistically significant link between cholesterol and heart disease! In fact they really don't know what causes heart disease at all and most deaths due to heart disease are misdiagnosed since autopsies aren't always performed and heart disease is the default! Basically no medical scientist can say (based on actual evidence) that a junk food diet with a mulivitamin is any better than the fruits and vegetable diets being advocated (assuming the multivitamin is effectively absorbed and contains accurate representation of the vitamins). This really seems to be to much to be true (I can eat bacon), until you consider the latest review: obesity.
Yes the CDC (one of the only medical establishments where researchers can't line their pockets with private money, such as the diet industry worth ~43 billion) recently released a review article about the actual dangers of obesity and it basically says it ain't a problem. Obese people are just as likely to die from the same heath problems as non-obese people (with the exception of a possible link to diabetes, but it could be diabetes causes the obesity). Everything else is propaganda. The problem we have is there are smart people who believe strange things and are skilled at defending these beliefs.
Now what should I eat? Well I'm sticking with organic foods for the 'green' reasons and since I don't want to know what extra growth hormones/cannibalism/excessive antibiotics in my animal products or pesticides/insecticides will do to my body. Let the ignorant be the guinea pigs. I'll probably continue with my increased fruit/veggy diet since it will ensure proper vitamins, but no more low fat anything! I'm back on organic 2%, organic cheese etc... now what should I snack on ...
posted by Eddie | 12:43 AM
10 Comments:
Here's one study run by a non-profit that looked at 16000 people and found obesity increased mortality. Not only that, but they found that obesity by itself increased heart disease even after they accounted for the higher cholesterol levels of fat people.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10381293&dopt=Citation
So where's this mysterious CDC study which says the opposite?
A few things. Obese is defined by a persons BMI and it itself is probably at or near the root of the problem (I'm almost underweight, Arnold Swart[..] is obese as are many other body builders). The measure doesn not take into accoutn what I would think is most important fat to muscle to bone ratios.
What I read is Scientific American: Obesity: An Overblown Epidemic? [ NUTRITION AND HEALTH ]. The CDC article is Excess Deaths Associated with Overweight, Underweight and Obesity. Katherine M. Flegal et al. in Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 293, pages 1861-1867; April 20, 2005.
The study quoted above has a few things I can pick at (but I'm not a doctor). the BMI's where between healthy and overweight (not even obese ) which is odd (healthy: 18.5-24.9, overweight: 25-29.9,obese (I):30-34.9). This I imagine is a difference between Germamy's standards and the U.S. Federal policy and WHO. The next thing is I've come to be very skeptical about the cause of death being hearth desease when it isn't very precise as they have found (http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/129/12/1066).
CHD can also be caused by pathagens ( Ellis RW. Infection and coronary heart disease. Journal of Medical Microbiology 46(7), 535-539, July 1997) making the 'effective' cause of death to be a comprimised immune system.
So in effect they don't have accurrate statistics on deaths from CHD caused by one specific thing (not surprising when you consider the task), their classification of healthy, overweight etc isn't well done (it is still a part mystery to some why 250lbs NFL Tackles are healthy) and they have trouble showing eating cholesterol raises the level of serum cholesterol (and disagree about the measurments).
Well this makes me skeptical. Is it hard to imagine our ancestors, who often had to go days without eating, wheren't able to gain weiht when they can and not compromise their overall health. I think the real factor is inactivity. It seems to be the one constant and also correlates with animals (unlike the cholesterol stuff).
It's odd to think that out of all the stuff I write about this (and a poem) get the most rebuttle ;-] Well I guess it's needed since these docs are own by the pharmacy and these's plently of $$ in being (or thinking you are) sick.
Here is the what CDC study says:
Conclusions Underweight and obesity, particularly higher levels of obesity, were associated with increased mortality relative to the normal weight category.
So how do you read that as saying that obesity isn't a problem? The only thing they found which agrees with what you said was that people with moderately high BMIs (25-30) had reduced mortality. Unlike the study I posted, they didn't say that if they controlled for smoking and cancer. Cancer makes people lose weight and moderately overweight people are less likely to smoke, so those two factors have to be accounted for.
As for your other points, yes heart disease can be misdiagnosed and caused by many factors, but so what? The studies show a correlation between increased mortality and obesity. In the end, we know that *something* causes excess deaths in fat people. What difference does it make if the effective cause of death is actually heart disease or pathogens? That doesn't change the main point, which is whether obesity is dangerous.
Same thing for the fact that BMI doesn't take into account how much of the weight is fat versus muscle. It's only a rough measurement, but that doesn't change the fact that people with higher BMIs die faster. If there's an error because some of the people with high BMIs have a lot of muscle, then being fat is even more dangerous than the study shows. Obviously the muscular people aren't suffering from a lack of excercise.
And by the way, the cholesterol stuff has been tested on animals and it works just like in humans. Why are you saying it hasn't?
Here's just one example of an animal study:
The aim of the present mini review is to describe the laboratory rabbit, an animal that has been widely used for the study of atherosclerosis, the leading cause of mortality in Western society. Due to the fact that the rabbit exhibits hypercholesterolaemia within a few days of an administration of a high cholesterol diet, it is very sensitive to the inducement of atheromatic lesions.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15207035&query_hl=2
I think it's also important to remember that obesity has many implications that diminish ones quality of life. Forget for a moment that fat people may or may not have an increased risk of heart disease and the fact that it causes the already mentioned type II diabeties. Heavy people suffer from a range of joint problems, increased cancer risks, respiratory issues and reproductive health concerns, among others. Plus there is also the social stigma involved. Being overweight messes with you in more ways than one. No matter how you dice it, obesity inherently diminishes ones life expectancy. If you want to die young, you can't beat smoking, no exercise and an unhealthy diet.
Another point is that just because you eat foods high in cholesterol doesn't mean you're going to get fat. And just because you're fat doesn't mean you have high cholesterol. Look at Dave Letterman, the guy's cholesterol is through the roof and he needed a quintuple bypass a few years back, but he's a pretty slim guy. So many factors go into determining your cholesterol levels and risks for heart disease that it isn't even funny.
Eddie look at this abstract:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/290/7/898
It says that 80% to 90% of your risk of heart disease is affected by known risk factors. In other words, your genes can (at most) account for only 10-20%.
That means finding out what your ancestors ate and mimicking them won't help you much.
I've been waiting to reply because I've been trying to get my hands on the book, but alas I can't wait. So I'll make a few more points. Being overweight or mildly obese (as defined in the SA article) is shown not to lead to a dramatic increase in death for these people. The point I wanted to make was that the cause may be misinterpreted. That is to say if someone is overweight they should not be considered unhealthy. They may have become obese due to the diabeties so fighting their weight is fighting the effect not the cause.
Kurt, I'd never suggest anyone become obese. It's a poor evolutionary choice for procriation. My intention is to raise the idea that I had after reading the article: why are we putting soo much emphasis into solving the effect instead of encouraging people to tackle the cause? Maybe it's because we really don;t have a good grasp on the relationship from what goes in your mouth to what get's stuck in your heart (with the genetic, excercise and internal chemisties in between). I haven't ever seen any of these studies give a confidence level (it's probably because I don't know where to look) as well so are we talking about 1-2 sigma or 5?
The rabbit-cholesterol thing is what I am still most interested in (since I'm far from overweight). The rabbit study (as well as the studies on dogs, rats, mice and felines) tells me one thing resoundingly: your thyriod matters! Carnivors can only get artherioscerosis by tampering with their thyriods. If oe looks here you can see they make the direct link between thryiod levels and atherosclerosis (note this is blood cholesterol not dietary) and here is a comment about it stating another researcher's postition that subclinical thryoid therapies should be dealt with. This would tackle the cause not the effect. I'm still looking into more things on this topic.
For anyone interested you may want to see THINCS and take a look at the Augmented press release on statin drugs. This is a good example of using inconclusive science. If you think these are just "flat-earth" types then look up Duane Graveline who was an astronaut physician and wrote "Lipitor: Thief of Memory, Statin Drugs and the Misguided War on Cholesterol" after personally experiencing severe side-effects from statins. He's qualified for this argument, not me. But I won;t blindly follow the corporations or the government! (I'd have thought my libertarian friends would be anti governement dietary suggestions ... but that's a separate issue :)
Pure carnivores like dogs are much better at dealing with cholesterol than omnivores like humans. Still, even they have their limits and you don't need to mess with the thyroid to do it. See the following abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1263442&dopt=Abstract
As for underactive thyroids, obviously people with poor thyroid function can get high cholesterol, but that doesn't mean that everyone with high cholesterol has thyroid problems. It would be kind of hard to not notice the problem if one half of Americans had thyroid problems.
I've seen these claims of "subclinical hypothyroidism" being the cause of x, y or z before. The claims are hard to refute because no matter what you say, someone can claim that some particular level of thyroid hormones is too low and is causing subclinical symptomps (i.e. symptomps too small to notice). Well, if the symptomps are subclinical, how are you supposed to prove or disprove that claim?
If people want to make claims about invisible symptoms, then let them show their proof. Where are the studies showing that supplementing with TSH will lower mortality? There's lots of studies showing it will do just the opposite, but no matter what study you pick someone else can always pick a different hormone level as "too low" and say that they should have only supplemented *these* people instead of *those*.
Well, what can I say? Show me the evidence that increasing TSH helps the average person with high cholesterol, cause I haven't seen it.
By the way, Graveline's book claims that something like 15% of people on statins have memory problems. The abstract below shows no correlation between statins and memory at all. If Graveline's figure of 15% was anywhere close to the truth, a correlation would have been seen in the study. Either statins don't do anything to your memory, or the effect is so low that it would only be seen in a larger study.
Yes, I don't necessarily trust any government suggestions but that doesn't mean that anything the government says is always wrong. I trust science and, in this case, the government just happens to agree with the scientific data.
Pharmacotherapy. 2003 Jul;23(7):871-80. Related Articles, Links
Statin-associated memory loss: analysis of 60 case reports and review
of the literature.
Wagstaff LR, Mitton MW, Arvik BM, Doraiswamy PM.
Drug Information Service, Duke University Medical Center, Durham,
North Carolina 27710, USA.
OBJECTIVE: To review case reports of statin-associated memory loss as
well as the available published evidence for and against such a link.
METHODS: We searched the MedWatch drug surveillance system of the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) from November 1997-February 2002 for
reports of statin-associated memory loss. We also reviewed the
published literature (using MEDLINE) and prescribing information for
these drugs. RESULTS: Of the 60 patients identified who had memory
loss associated with statins, 36 received simvastatin, 23
atorvastatin, and 1 pravastatin. About 50% of the patients noted
cognitive adverse effects within 2 months of therapy. Fourteen (56%)
of 25 patients noted improvement when the statin was discontinued.
Memory loss recurred in four patients who were rechallenged with the
drug. None of the 60 reported cognitive test results. Two
placebo-controlled trials found no benefits for statins on cognition
or disability. One randomized controlled trial of simvastatin found no
effects on cerebrospinal amyloid levels. In one small, randomized
study, patients receiving statins showed a trend toward lower
cognitive performance than those receiving placebo. Five observational
studies found a lower risk of dementia among patients receiving
statins. CONCLUSION: Current literature is conflicting with regard to
the effects of statins on memory loss. Experimental studies support
links between cholesterol intake and amyloid synthesis; observational
studies indicate that patients receiving statins have a reduced risk
of dementia. However, available prospective studies show no cognitive
or antiamyloid benefits for any statin. In addition, case reports
raise the possibility that statins, in rare cases, may be associated
with cognitive impairment, though causality is not certain.
No way man, I do it for the chicks. Fortran is sexxxy!
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