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Dr. Cate and cholesterol: a series

In Dr. Cat's three article series on Cholesterol: What the American Heart Association is Hiding from You, she creates an excellent resource for educating others. And I even learned some new things.

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The American Heart Association has been in the fake news business for decades. This means everything your doctors learned about heart attacks, strokes, LDL and HDL cholesterol, and nutrition is wrong. In fact, the nutrition advice coming from our most trusted institutions couldn’t be better designed to make you sick.

This article is the first in a series intended to shed light on a dark chapter of American history that few people know about: the story of how we as a nation became convinced that cholesterol is unhealthy, and the consequences of that belief. I will share with you what I discovered about the real cause of heart attacks and strokes, and how I became convinced that cholesterol is not bad, and the AHA is not good. I hope these insights put unnecessary fears to rest and empower you to change your life for the better.

Part 1

Scam then, scam now.

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When your primary care doctor recommends cutting out foods like butter and eggs in favor of Smart Balance and egg beaters, or your naturopathic doctor tells you cow’s milk is unhealthy because of saturated fat and you’d be better off with rice milk, when your trainer tells you to eat skinless boneless chicken breast and protein powders, when your McDonald’s fries are soaked in seed oils instead of crisped with beef tallow like when I was a kid, and your take-out pizza is made with soy oil instead of olive oil, it’s important to realize that all these recommended changes are taking the freshness and realness of your diet down a notch or two—and some of these newer alternatives are outright toxic.

Nobody would want these lower-quality processed foods were it not for the idea that saturated fat and cholesterol clog your arteries. This idea has made us afraid of the very foods our bodies need the most, and it’s enabled the processed food industry to thrive as never before. The saturated fat lie helped to create a demand for alternative fats that come from soy, corn, and other subsidized monoculture crops soaked in pesticides and herbicides, destroying the soil and with it our ability to live sustainably off the land.

Part 2

The villain: you can guess.

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In my view, the fact that Ancel Keys included cigarettes in his military meal (the K-Ration, K for Keys) combined with the fact that he had a massive ego and his infamous 6 countries study makes him literally the poster child* of dishonest nutrition scientists, lead me to believe that simple confirmation bias may have been the issue with a few, but for Keys, it was garden variety, ego-driven fraud. [*Google an image search for “nutrition study scientific fraud” and Key’s six countries data comes up in the top row.]

Part 3

I really enjoyed these articles and appreciate Dr. Cate laying this out so neatly. Bookmarked for future reference so I can be better armed, both online and in person.

Dr. Cate is one of the increasingly many in the health field who are going against popular thinking to reach the truth. Good articles, WB. Ancel Keys is somewhat irrelevant in today's world, as his role in all this has been discussed in most books that deal with the heart disease/lipid hypothesis, as weak as it is today. Attributing blame to one who is no longer around provides some interesting history, but it's not gong to do what's necessary today to embrace good health practices.

As mentioned several times before, as a Sirius/XM subscriber, I listen to Doctors Radio, which is a station sponsored by New York University's Langone Health Center. One of the shows I listen to is Interventional Cardiology, hosted by Dr. Fred Feit. Dr. Feit is a strong advocate of the heart disease/lipid hypothesis and readily recommends statins for anyone with LDL over 90. This is a current cardiologist who is unwilling to consider some of the issues that Dr. Cate identifies in her articles. Fred Feit is not alone, unfortunately, as there are many who don't have a radio show as a platform; yet, freely treat patients in their clinical practices with this type of thinking. It's a numbers game and doctors in med school are trained to test, prescribe, and follow the path. After graduating from med school and completing their internships, the ongoing education of doctors seems to be the focal point of the pharmaceutical companies who have a vested interest in the prescribing of their products. So, in addition to the food and seed oil manufacturers listed in Dr. Cate's articles, the health "knowledge" available is supplied and supported by the pharmaceutical and healthcare markets (including registered dieticians) based on their "research." The market economy continues to promote this lack of awareness. Therefore, I have a great deal of respect for people like Dr. Cate and the many other health professionals we cite on this forum who go against popular thinking and build their clinical practices according to their results with fact-based treatment.

This is a long rant due to frustration with the lack of information available and the myths promoted by the main stream that confuse people and lead them down a path that reaches anything but a good quality of life. My frustration focuses mainly on the fact that most people are neither willing nor equipped to discover how to live a healthy lifestyle and depend on experts to help them. Unfortunately, there's a broad (a majority?) population of experts who are just as confused, and the danger is they haven't realized it.

My husband was recently put on a statin. His total cholesterol was 165, triglycerides 110, HDL 52, and LDL 91 ... ALL IN THE NORMAL RANGES!!! Hubby insisted the doc must know what he's talking about, because his former doc (now retired) also wanted him on statins.

GIVE ME STRENGTH!!!

I tried to get him to do some reading, but no. If his doc said to do it, he was going to try it for 3 months.

I asked him if his doc talked about any of the side effects. Nope, he hadn't. I told him that he'll likely get muscle cramps, possibly severe, and that mental decline was also a likely possibility. Sure enough, he got leg cramps so bad he couldn't sleep at night and was having trouble concentrating in the daytime. He also had a bout with severe mental fog while on the job. He's a corporate trainer for a enterprise software company, and near the end of one day, he said he started making all kinds of mistakes, and couldn't figure his way out of the exercises. That was the last day he took the statin.

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Originally Posted by BawdyWench

I told him that he'll likely get muscle cramps, possibly severe, and that mental decline was also a likely possibility.

My cousin is an RN whose beloved/sainted doctor put both her and her husband on statins. Both were only ~20lbs overweight despite carby food choices, but with very active jobs. Hubby got ALL of the statin symptoms and at 55 he had to turn over the family building contractor business to his son. They won't listen to advice that their doctor is wrong about statins. I suspected it early since they both went from being robustly healthy to tired and gaining weight in less than 6 months. They are ~5 yrs younger than me, so it is very sad to watch them decline. Hopefully the MSM and doctors will learn the truth about statins sooner rather than later.

Low cholesterol, below 200, contributes to chronic diseases. Cholesterol is the backbone of over 200 biochemicals manufactured and used in thebody. When my doctor points out my 205 level, I just nod.

My doc tends to point out issues, but not act on them. Lol

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Originally Posted by GRB5111

This is a long rant due to frustration with the lack of information available and the myths promoted by the main stream that confuse people and lead them down a path that reaches anything but a good quality of life. My frustration focuses mainly on the fact that most people are neither willing nor equipped to discover how to live a healthy lifestyle and depend on experts to help them. Unfortunately, there's a broad (a majority?) population of experts who are just as confused, and the danger is they haven't realized it.

I find myself increasingly saddened and frustrated by all the people I know that cannot or will not take control of their health. It seems like it has become common sense not to eat red meat among the majority of people. They brag about how they have given up red meat. I have one cousin who sought me out for nutritional advice and she might in fact be following my recommendations or at least she was and successfully. She lost the weight she wanted to lose although by my standards it wasn’t much (20 lbs) and got rid of most of her aches and pains. I am hoping she keeps it up. I am certainly grateful that I saw the light.

Thanks for posting. :)

She doesn't let up about seed oils - a great effort. Love her book Deep Nutrition .

I forgot to mention the horrible, violent dreams my husband had while on statins. Violent dreams are a known, but not common, side effect of statins.

Every night he'd thrash around, calling out in his sleep. He dreamed he was being shot in the head, or mauled by lions, etc. One night I was trying to calm him down and put my hand on his arm. He must have been dreaming that someone was trying to restrain him because he grabbed my shoulder and pushed me away abruptly so that I fell back on the bed. Yet another reason he's off the statin.

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Originally Posted by BawdyWench

Yet another reason he's off the statin.

I'm so glad! We can only imagine how many people are suffering and don't know why.

And not discussing side effects! That's bad.

I took Statins about 20 years ago and ever since my calves have been very tight and at times painful. I tried about everything to resolve it, COQ-10, Magnesium, and many other combinations with out success. No, I just tell doctor NO emphatically and tell them the background and they don't usually ask me again until the following year, it seems they have to ask every year. Because of my experience, there is no way I will EVER take statins again.