Health Guidance

A total lack of any supportive evidence does not necessarily prove that fat/saturated fat in the diet does not cause heart disease. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, let me now mention a few of the most powerful pieces of evidence that directly contradict the diet-heart hypothesis. But where to begin? There is just so much to choose from.

I think the best place to start is with the biggest trial on dietary modification ever done, and the biggest that will ever be done. Fifty million people were placed on a low saturated-fat diet for fourteen years. Sausages, eggs, cheese, bacon and milk were severely restricted. Fruit and fish, however, were freely available, those oh-so healthy foods. Continue reading ‘The French and Cholesterol Levels’ »

Happened to catch the very last few minutes of a Discovery Health program this morning about monitoring anticoagulation. It is part of a CME series for physicians and other health-care providers. They can register, watch the clips, then take an online test and get credit.

Could not access the site at home because we have dial-up. Kept getting booted off. We are in Dallas today visiting my parents who have DSL, so I brought my laptop.

The program is wonderful! I highly recommend that each person here who is on warfarin watch it. The program is extremely supportive of home testing (FYI: Roche, which makes CoaguChek, is involved in this program, if my memory serves me right.). In fact, there are 2 home-testers interviewed for the program. Continue reading ‘Health Anticoagulation Program’ »

Does eating a high-fat diet, or a high saturated-fat diet, cause heart disease? I shall start by presenting all of the evidence in support of the dietheart hypothesis. This time I am actually not joking. Aside from Ancel Keys’s study – a study subject to accusations of selection bias – there is no evidence in support of the diet-heart hypothesis. I believe that the strongest backing for this somewhat bold statement comes from two different sources.

Firstly, the Surgeon General’s office in the USA. Secondly, from Professors Law and Wald, the high priests of heart-disease orthodoxy. Both of these sources were, and remain, utterly convinced of the diet-heart hypothesis. In 1988, the Surgeon General’s office decided to gather together all the evidence linking saturated fat to heart disease, and thus silence any remaining naysayers forever. Continue reading ‘Diet and Heart Disease’ »

It has been recognized for many years that women, generally, suffer much less heart disease than men – especially younger women. The difference is normally about 300 per cent. This is despite the fact that women have higher average cholesterol levels. The widest gap I found was in New Zealand in the 1970s.

Here, women aged 45-55 had onetenth the mortality rate of men. Now that is what I call a gap. Women, therefore, present a problem for the cholesterol hypothesis. Higher cholesterol levels than men, but much lower rates of heart disease. Many findings for women were discrepant from those for men. Of particular importance in women was considered to be the essentially flat relation of total cholesterol to total mortality, total cardiovascular, and total cancer mortality. Continue reading ‘Do women suffer much less heart disease than men?’ »

The French, you see, eat more saturated fat than people do in the UK. They smoke more, take less exercise, have the same cholesterol/LDL levels, the same HDL levels. They also have the same average blood pressure and the same rate of obesity. And you know what? They have one quarter the rate of heart disease that we do. One-quarter!

In fact, the French consume more saturated fat than any other nation in Europe, and they have the lowest rate of heart disease. The only other nation that comes close to their super-low rate of heart disease is Switzerland, and the Swiss have the second highest consumption of saturated fat in Europe.I believe that I know what some of you are thinking right now. They, the French, are protected from heart disease by drinking red wine, eating freshly cooked vegetables (all those antioxidants, you see) and eating garlic. Continue reading ‘French Case’ »