The Cholesterol Times, Issue #001 -- Research Corruption and More
August 16, 2005
Dear Reader,
Cholesterol-and-Health.com has been experiencing exponential growth, having only been released publicly for 16 days! Please help support our growth by forwarding this free newsletter to your friends and family, who can subscribe here.
This is the first issue of this newsletter. In it, you will find out about the recent updates to the website, as well as information about research that is not available on the website.
Find out how government guidelines for cholesterol and blood pressure are being used not for your safety, but to surreptitiously ever-widen the scope of Americans who are "candidates" for pharmaceutical drugs. Read about the massive corruption in Alzheimer's research and the complicity of the major journals, and find out how cholesterol-lowering drugs might be hiding in your food!
For more, read on...
Contents:
Site Updates
Best of the 'Net
Research Blurbs
Commentary
Acknowledgements
Updates
The Amazing, Overnight Success of Cholesterol-and-Health.com
In just two weeks, Cholesterol-and-Health.com has made it to the top 0.1%-- not 1%, but 0.1%-- of all websites world wide, according to Alexa.com! Read about the amazing and rapid success of this website, and how it all happened...
The Cholesterol Myths -- Review
If you haven't already read Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's The Cholesterol Myths, this review will certainly make you want to. Dr. Ravnskov, MD, PhD, destroys nine myths about cholesterol and its supposed relationship to heart disease.
Nourishing Traditions -- Review
Read this review of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions and how it saved my health.
Want a basic education about fats and oils that's readable for a popular audience but is written by a lipid scientist? Then this book belongs on your shelf.
Best of the 'Net
Political and Economic Corruption in Alzheimer's Research
If you have read our articles on cholesterol and Alzheimer's disease, you are familiar with the bankruptcy of what is called the "amyloid hypothesis" of Alzheimer's. Dr. Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD, provides damning evidence that major proponents of the amyloid hypothesis are covering up their ties to pharmaceutical companies. Worse, he indicts some of the most well-known and prestigious scientific journals as complicit in this mess. The corrupt players of this charade even sit on or contribute to major government institutions such as the NIH and the NAS. Dr. Koudinov spares no one for politeness, and names names. A must-read.
Government Guidlines are Making You a Victim of Profit
Richard Rhodes' newsletter provides comments by Paul J. Rosch, MD, about how guidelines for blood pressure and cholesterol from the Joint National Committees have been violating standard procedure by timing new guidelines with the release of related drugs, and publicizing the guidelines before the scientific basis has been made available for doctors and the public to evaluate. These comments make medical guidelines sound like the passage of the PATRIOT Act!
Nels Stemm brings the discoveries of dentist-turned-nutritional-anthropologist Weston A. Price, who extolled the importance of animal foods to the human body, to the massive readership of LewRockwell.com. The second part of his article discusses The Continuum Concept, a must-read for current and future parents.
Research Blurbs
New European Guidelines: "You Are ALL at risk!"
A study published yesterday in the British Medical Journal estimated what percentage of Norwegians would be considered at-risk for heart disease according to the guidelines of the Third Joint Task Force of European and Other Societies on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Clinical Practice in 2003.
The guidelines set various risk levels. "High-risk" is the highest risk category, and indicates a 5% or greater risk of having heart disease in 10 years.
It found that only 8.5% of women and NO MEN aged 40 and older were considered as "low-risk" for heart disease. Conversely, 22.5% and a full 85.9% of men were found to be at "high-risk" for heart disease, which requires "maximial clinical attention and no further assessment of risk." The same group had previously found that 75% of all Norweigians over the age of 20 require blood pressure and cholesterol counseling!
Wait a minute. Which 20 year-olds do you know who are dropping dead from heart disease left and right?
Just how did people so young become classified as "high-risk" to the point where nearly the entire adult male population requires "maximal clinical attention"?
The answer is quite simple: The guidelines recommend that in the "younger" age groups the 10-year risk assessment is to be extended to 60 years!
If the 60-year extrapolation is eliminated nearly no 40-year-old males are classified as high-risk!
Why is it that governmental guidelines would classify an entire population at high-risk? One may speculate that it is certainly profitable for the manufacturers and marketers of statins. As the author's note, it could also be quite a boon to insurance companies, who raise rates for higher-risk populations. And, I'm sure, it may serve as useful capital when passing or enlarging something like a Prescription Drug Bill.
After all, if absurd guidelines like these were actually taken as believable, in the U.S. that might mean Bush's and Congress's prescription drug plan for seniors might just have to extend to all age groups over 20.
Cholesterol-lowering Drugs in our Food???
Dr. Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD, has brought to my attention his 2001 publication in the FASEB Journal, showing the effects of extracting cholesterol from hippocampal slices (the hippocampus is part of the brain).
Cyclodextrin is a water-soluble substance that binds cholesterol inside its fat-soluble core, and enhances its loss from cells.
Exposure of rat hippocampus to cyclodextrin caused an 11% extraction of cholesterol that resulted in impairment of long-term potentiation (LTP), which is one of the molecular mechanisms of memory. 6 hours of exposure to cyclodextrin caused a 70% loss of cholesterol and a 7% loss of phospholipids (another component of cell membranes) that resulted in the complete abolition of LTP. Cyclodextrin treatment also caused other forms of neurodegeneration, including changes associated with the "neurofibrillary tangles" found in Alzheimer's disease.
But what's the scary part? You may be consuming cyclodextrins and not even know it.
Dr. Koudinov has informed me through personal correspondence that cyclodextrins are used both as delivery systems for other pharmaceutical drugs and in foods: especially dried foods that need to retain certain aromas.
Cholesterol-and-Health.com will report on the use of cyclodextrins in food in greater detail when more information is uncovered.
Commentary
There are two reoccurring themes in the links and studies presented today in this newsletter: the first is a need for skepticism of both government and other institutions of authority; the second is a necessity of procuring natural, whole foods, and avoiding the processed pacakaged junk that may contain many additives about which we are left in the dark.
In the first case, Dr. Koudinov's expose of corruption in Alzheimer's research also shows how the corruption of private individuals with their own financial interests so easily leaks into governmental institutions and intertwines with them. It must be considered that if the NIH and other such government-associated institutions involved in doling out both prestige and money are infiltrated by the agents of pharmaceutical companies who uphold bankrupt scientific theories, what good is all this extra money we spend on research actually doing?
This calls for us to step back and question whether having these massive beauracracies to dole out massive tax dollars for research actually helps or hinders the scientific process. The total amount of money spent on research becomes irrelevant, if that money is used to leverage researchers into supporting certain faulty hypotheses, or to pay lip-service in their summaries and conclusions to theories that their study does not even support.
Government is inherently an anti-scientific institution simply because of its centralized and political nature. Science relies on a healthy skepticism of all claims and an evaluation of arguments based on merit rather than authority, whereas the reports of government committees are considered "authoritative."
While it is imperative to the vitality of a society that it make a very substantial contribution to the sciences, innovative thinkers must be called upon to develop new ideas about how to manage the allocation of resources in a more decentralized way to encourage the use of that money for true science, and not the squashing of new ideas with dead ones.
This point is made again in the two articles on public guidelines. If the guidelines are made to serve the public health, why are they rushed in the night and forced through surreptitiously, made by closed committees and made public without allowing time for the review of the scientific community? And why does the timing coincide so well with the new release of related drugs?
We really must consider whether it is wise to have a "public health" policy at all. If there is a wise way to have such a policy, it must be radically changed from as it is now. But one thing is clear: it would be better to have no public health policy than a bad one.
The second point is on the need for reliance on whole foods. Nels Stemm writes about the benefits of butter and other whole foods-- making clear that this includes animal foods-- not, for example, the "whole-foods, plant-based diet" of Dr. T. Colin Campbell. And our brief note on cyclodextrins in food is an alarming call to question whether we really know what is in our food.
I recently had an email discussion with Dr. Campbell. He was unfailingly polite, and the discussion was productive and engaging. Dr. Campbell believes that a vegan diet is healthiest-- needless to say, I strongly disagree.
But what strikes me most about the story Campbell tells, and his positive experience with vegetarianism, is that his history indicates that he had the best of a "whole-foods, animal-based diet" in his developmental years. Someone raised on a farm with access to fresh whole milk, eggs, meats, and vegetables, as well as hard work and exposure to dirt and germs during development for a strong immune system, apparently develops the type of constitution that can withstand the nutritional deficiencies of a vegetarian diet for a very, very long time, and possibly even have a beneficial effect from a temporary type of detox.
On the other hand, there are many people who did not have his fortunate circumstances, and whose systems suffer dramatic declines in short periods of time on a vegetarian diet.
It would certainly turn out to be ironic if the reason some do well on vegetarian diets is the presence of rich amounts of animal foods in their childhood!
Dr. Campbell also tells in his book of his own experience with government: when he rose in position of public policy, he encountered committees who consisted of nothing but representatives of meat and dairy industries, himself a loner as an independent scientist.
Yet where have we come for the influence of the meat and dairy industries to have waned, only for the influence of a much more powerful and conglomerated class of industry-- first the grain and soy industries, and now the manufacturers of amyloid vaccines and cholesterol-lowering drugs-- simply to take their place?
If we are to achieve health we must shun the declarations of all authoritative institutions and compare opposing ideas ourselsves, on their merit. And, apparently, that skepticism must also carry over to our reading of food labels. The cyclodextrin might not always be listed.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, and The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics, as well as Sally Fallon and The Weston A Price Foundation for linking to our site, which will help increase our visibility in the search engines.
Special thanks also to Dr. Iwo Bohr of the Institute for Ageing at the University of Newcastle for advice and stimulating discussion.
Special thanks also to Dr. Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD, for advice and suggestions for further avenues of research.
Thanks also to LewRockwell.com for continuing to publish articles skeptical of the politically correct view of cholesterol and fatty foods, and helping to expand the readership base of websites like the Weston A. Price Foundation and Cholesterol-and-Health.com.
WAPF Annual Conference
I would like to take this opportunity to publicize the Weston A Price Foundation's Wise Traditions Annual Conference. The conference features doctors, researchers, and others speaking on a wide range of health issues, and two special tracks on heart disease and cancer. The topics have historically included fresh and innovative perspectives, as well as outrageously delicious food. This year, several social activities have been added to the schedule as well.
For more information, click here.
You can make online reservations at the hotel and receive a discount by mentioning the Weston A. Price Foundation when you call, or by using this link.
Please note that this newsletter and Cholesterol-and-Health.com are copyright of Chris Masterjohn, 2005. Please also note that this information is to be used for educational purposes only and not as advice, and please read our Disclaimer.
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