Ignore the Awkward.: How the Cholesterol Myths Are Kept Alive

143 Pages·2010·0.82 MB·English

by  Uffe Ravnskov

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus.
Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one
investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that
are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant.
What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are
great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as
consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t
consensus. Period.
Michael Crichton
This book is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. Please consult your doctor if you
have any questions about your health. Because the proponents of the cholesterol campaign have misled
most doctors, it may also be a good idea for him or her to read this book.

ISBN 1453759409
E-Book ISBN: 978-1-61789-046-8
Copyright © 2010 Uffe Ravnskov
Cover Photo: Jan Nordén
Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
The Myths

Chapter 1. The Animal Argument
Chapter 2. The Diet Argument
Chapter 3. The Nobel Prize argument
Chapter 4. The Risk Factor Argument
Chapter 5. An Argument to Forget
Chapter 6. The Trial Argument
How to Keep A False Idea Alive

Chapter 7. How to Ignore Contradictory Evidence
Chapter 8 How to Exaggerate Insignificant Results
Chapter 9. How to Explain Away Awkward Results
Chapter 10. How to Lie Convincingly
Chapter 11. How to Ignore Alternative Explanations
Chapter 12. How to Ignore the Critics
Chapter 13. When Arguments Stop Working
Chapter 14. Industrial Tricks
Part Three

Chapter 15. The Real Cause?
Acknowledgement
Introduction

Now they’re planning the crime of the century Well what will it be?
Read all about their schemes and adventuring
Yes it’s well worth a fee
So roll up and see
And they rape the universe
How they’ve gone from bad to worse
Who are these men of lust, greed, and glory?
Rip off the masks and let’s see.
But that’s not right - oh not, what’s the story?
There’s you and there’s me
That can’t be right
Hodgson, Roger, Davies, Rick (Supertramp)

A fad idea

Are you worried about your high cholesterol? Do you avoid butter, cheese and
cream because you are afraid of dying from a heart attack? Do you take a
cholesterol lowering drug? If so, you are a victim of the cholesterol campaign,
the greatest medical scandal in modern times. Even worse, you may suffer from
bad memory, muscle weakness, pain in your legs, sexual impotency or cancer,
not because you are getting old, but because of the harmful effects from your
cholesterol treatment.
Don’t you believe me? Neither does your doctor because all the experts have
said that cholesterol reduction is harmless.
Unfortunately they are wrong. Not only have the pharmaceutical companies
and their paid researchers succeeded in presenting the cholesterol reducing drugs
as a gift from heaven. The very idea that saturated fat and high cholesterol are
deleterious to health is created out of thin air. In spite of that it has been accepted
uncritically across the globe.
The hypothesis that is used as the argument for the cholesterol campaign has
three paragraphs. First, the concentration of cholesterol in the blood goes up, if
we eat too much saturated fat. Second, when cholesterol is too high, our arteries
are converted from smooth canals to rough-walled and narrowed tubes. Thirdly,
because of the irregular artery wall a blood clot may be created causing a
myocardial infarction or a stroke. Let us take a first, short look at them.
Saturated fat isn’t bad

That saturated fat is harmful to human health runs counter to common sense. Fat
is composed of various types of fatty acids and fatty acids are molecular chains
of various lengths, mainly composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Some fatty
acids lack hydrogen atoms and therefore they have one or more double bonds
between the carbon atoms. They are named monounsaturated with one double
bond and polyunsaturated, if they have more than one. Small amounts of mono
and polyunsaturated fatty acids are necessary for normal cell function. We
produce them ourselves except for a few of the polyunsaturated ones, which we
need to get from our food.
Saturated fatty acids are stable molecules because they are saturated with
atoms of hydrogen. One of the main constituents of our cell walls is saturated
fat. We produce saturated fat ourselves to build new cells and the excess is
deposited in our fat cells for later use. Saturated fat is the dominant type of fat in
milk, the fluid that is able to nourish the growing baby for a long time after birth,
on its own.
Do you really believe that humans are designed to produce a toxic molecule
that will eventually kill us? Could the dominant fat in mother’s milk be
poisonous to the baby? It is simply a masterpiece of deceit to convince a whole
world that too much saturated fat in our food should cause a deadly disease.
High cholesterol is good

When I heard about the cholesterol hypothesis for the first time I had just left the
University of Copenhagen with an MD. The paper that raised my interest came
from Framingham, a small town near Boston, where a research team had studied
a large number of its citizens for some years. What they discovered was that the
concentration of cholesterol in the blood of those who suffered a heart attack
during the observation time had been a little higher when they entered the
program. The directors had concluded that high cholesterol was the very cause
of myocardial infarction.
My biochemical knowledge was still intact then and I knew that cholesterol
was one of the most important molecules in our body. It is impossible to build
cell walls and nerve fibres without cholesterol. We produce other important
molecules, for instance the sex and stress hormones, by changing the structure of
the cholesterol molecule a little. With a little help from the sun our skin cells use