Comments on: LDL Nonsense is Taxing My Sanity

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:21:02 +0000

With your libertarian bent, you might enjoy this article by Chris Masterjohn, if you haven’t already seen it.

“Why the State Hates Cholesterol.”

http://nutrition-and-physical-regeneration.com/blog/182/government/why-the-state-hates-cholesterol/

Brilliant! Wish I’d written it myself.

By: Todd

Todd — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:15:56 +0000

Speaking of bad science..

I’d call this tripe, but it’s an insult to perfectly good food!

“Fat turns off hormones that regulate our appetite and bodyweight”

http://ca.lifestyle.yahoo.com/health-fitness/articles/archive/rogers-macleans/blame-your-brain-2009-12-18

Fat ramps up our appetites? That’s just stupid. Who the heck ever eats 20 eggs? Interesting example, too: strip loin, loaded baked potato, cheesecake. Then when you overeat, they blame the fat, not the starch and sugar.

By: Angel

Angel — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:04:38 +0000

To Brian and anyone else considering not paying their taxes:

You might lower your heart disease risk, but you’d be dead anyway because your significant other would kill you.

However, from a scientific point of view, this would not be a problem if Tom chooses to ignore all-cause mortality. Just be sure to get your blood sample sent in to the lab before your spouse finds out what you’ve done.

I’m taking a tip from the statin-makers: I’ll simply report a lower number of heart-disease deaths, without bothering to mention that more people in my treatment group died of other causes.

By: jerome

jerome — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:36:21 +0000

Tom, I’ve been mulling over the scientists’ claim that disease lowers
chloresterol. Obviously, good health is hazardous to your chloreserol
levels! Which explains how statins lower LDL – they make you sick!
But wouldn’t a typhoid injection work as well?

And it would be cheaper.

By: Richard Tamesis

Richard Tamesis — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:56:25 +0000

My only quibble with your hypothesis is that you failed to include the favorite word of lousy researchers, which is “suggest” as in “Our data SUGGESTS that high tax rates are highly associated with higher heart disease rates.” Without that magic word in your article, people reading your article won’t take you seriously.

Good point. I appreciate the suggestion.

By: Todd

Todd — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:13:23 +0000

Had I submitted conclusions as counter to the results and illogical as these tenured, published, chair-holding professors at top-level colleges, I never would have made it out of any of the lab sections of my 200 level coursework on the way to a B.Sc.

I think my college physics professor would’ve smacked me over the head if I’d explained away the results like these people do.

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:55:50 +0000

Maybe the European secret is lower stress levels, not so much the diet. Although their habit of eating more slowly also helps to reduce the inflammatory response, compared to our American habit of gobbling down our food in 10 minutes.

That’s what Dr. Malcolm Kendrick believes as well; stress has quite a bit to do with heart disease.

By: Lazar

Lazar — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:08:14 +0000

Props for this great article

I am propped.

By: Richard Tamesis

Richard Tamesis — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:33:17 +0000

Can I use your article for a journal club that I’m holding next month with ophthalmology residents? I want to show them a great example of critical thinking and how to recognize garbage in medical literature when they see it.

I’d be honored, thanks.

By: Lynda

Lynda — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:33:19 +0000

Just when I think I’ve read it all, you scare the bejesus out of me!! I’ve always considered myself to have good common sense and a logical mind. It beggars belief that so much inaccurate information abounds in the world. This is seriously like when people said the world was flat! Because something is said often enough it is obviously true! I have started my own one-woman crusade to help all of my online overweight blogger friends.

My partner and I are doing this by example and I have converted a few to the new way of thinking and eating. I just listened to the Jimmy Moore’s podcast about the book “Suicide by Sugar” and was shocked by that. How on earth does fat get the bad rap and sugar (aka, corn syrup and about 50 other names) get off virtually scott free?

Well done too on the “high tax causes high cholesterol” – I thoroughly enjoyed that

Gary Taubes began the investigative work that eventually led to “Good Calories, Bad Calories” after he wrote a book about cold fusion titled “Bad Science,” and a friend in the nutrition field told him the really bad science was in health and nutrition. His friend was right.