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I would also add that hdl (the “healthy cholesterol”) in fact helps: 1. Prevent plaque build up; 2. Lowers risk of heart disease; and 3. Lowers risk of stroke.

I would also add that hdl (the “healthy cholesterol”) in fact helps: 1. Prevent plaque build up; 2. Lowers risk of heart disease; and 3. Lowers risk of stroke. The problem with industries muddy the water by claiming “cholesterol” is bad without distinguishing between ldl and hdl. It’s similar to what the sugar industry does with “diabeties” when they don’t distinguish between type 1 and type 2.

lhl 8y ago
To me, it's interesting to see first hand, having now done tons of primary literature research over the past few months. What I've pieced together is that driven primarily by Ancel Keys and a few other strong personalities (eg McGovern and his aides), the "lipid hypothesis" was implemented as public policy based on scant epidemiological/associational (and no clinical) evidence to try to stem the heart disease crisis. This of course, happened during a time when tobacco companies was actively suppressing the health impacts of smoking. Since then, and because the lipid hypothesis was deemed as institutional truth, we've been chasing a white rabbit that didn't exist. First it was saturated fats, then cholesterol, then LDL, now LP(a) and Ox-LDL... In the meantime, since saturated fat was public enemy number one, even worse replacements (trans-fats, industrial seed oils, even potentially worse and unstudied new FA isomers now) were introduced as replacements and sugar consumption increased dramatically from fat-phobia (as the defacto remaining macro as red meat and protein were also tarred with the same brush), leading to where we are now (a global metabolic disease pandemic). What's interesting is in the past two decades especially, the amount of very interesting nutritional and metabolic research (biomechanistic research in animal models, RCTs and other human trials) has been staggering, and I think there's overwhelming evidence (and now some momentum even) in scientific/medical circles strongly pointing out that nutritional policies and "common wisdom" as being flat out wrong, but in the general public (which includes most medical practitioners, sadly) there's a huge lag. Which is too bad, considering obesity rates are likely above 40% in US adults now (39.8% in 2015-2016 [1]). [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

lhl 8y ago

To me, it's interesting to see first hand, having now done tons of primary literature research over the past few months. What I've pieced together is that driven primarily by Ancel Keys and a few other strong personalities (eg McGovern and his aides), the "lipid hypothesis" was implemented as public policy based on scant epidemiological/associational (and no clinical) evidence to try to stem the heart disease crisis. This of course, happened during a time when tobacco companies was actively suppressing the health impacts of smoking. Since then, and because the lipid hypothesis was deemed as institutional truth, we've been chasing a white rabbit that didn't exist. First it was saturated fats, then cholesterol, then LDL, now LP(a) and Ox-LDL... In the meantime, since saturated fat was public enemy number one, even worse replacements (trans-fats, industrial seed oils, even potentially worse and unstudied new FA isomers now) were introduced as replacements and sugar consumption increased dramatically from fat-phobia (as the defacto remaining macro as red meat and protein were also tarred with the same brush), leading to where we are now (a global metabolic disease pandemic). What's interesting is in the past two decades especially, the amount of very interesting nutritional and metabolic research (biomechanistic research in animal models, RCTs and other human trials) has been staggering, and I think there's overwhelming evidence (and now some momentum even) in scientific/medical circles strongly pointing out that nutritional policies and "common wisdom" as being flat out wrong, but in the general public (which includes most medical practitioners, sadly) there's a huge lag. Which is too bad, considering obesity rates are likely above 40% in US adults now (39.8% in 2015-2016 [1]). [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html