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April 18, 2005
A Modern Fallacy: No One has Ever Proved That High Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease
For the last 50 years, most researchers exploring the causes of heart disease focused on the idea that cardiovascular disease is linked to fat in the diet. This occurred in part because of incomplete population studies that incorrectly compared the modern western diet to poor Third World diets rather than to the natural diet of our pre-agrarian ancestors. Simply put, this hypothesis holds that a high-fat diet causes high blood cholesterol. High blood cholesterol, in turn, causes atherosclerosis or buildup of plaque in the arteries. Finally, this blockage of the arteries results in a heart attack. This is what your doctor has been telling you, right?
This theory seemed reasonable, except that the underlying presumption that Americans eat a higher fat diet than the historical norm turned out to be contradicted by both the archeological record and evidence from many different surviving hunter-gatherers. But there’s another big problem: Even if we presume that we did eat too much fat, no one has ever proved that this causes high cholesterol or that high blood cholesterol causes heart disease. In fact, since the 1950s, truly objective scientific studies repeatedly demonstrate the fallacy of this approach.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at April 18, 2005 6:11 AM