Cholesterol Skeptics
Ravnskov's Article - II
Ravnskov poses the question that we'd all like to know the answer to: "As there is no doubt that an excess of saturated fat may raise cholesterol ... how is it that such dietary changes do not prevent cardiovascular disease?"
In fact, he points out that there are exceptions to the risk associated with CHD risk prediction based on cholesterol, namely in women, and in elderly men. He quotes a meta-study on women that shows that only the highest quartile of cholesterol entails a higher risk. In certain cases, decreased cholesterol predicts an increase in risk for some men. In addition, postmortem and angiography studies show that atherosclerosis is generally independent of blood cholesterol.
Ravnskov postulates that there are several factors such as mental stress, physical inactivity and smoking that increase the risk of CHD, and at the same time raise cholesterol. Thus, there is a correlation, but not a cause and effect. He also claims that there is an inherent bias in many publications that tend to reference studies that support the diet-CHD approach, and ignore publications that are not consistent with it. He concludes by stating what I am sure we can all agree upon: " It would be a great contribution to science and mankind if influential institutions could break the vicious cycle by supporting researchers who create hypotheses that fit their data, instead of researchers who interpret their data to fit a predetermined hypothesis."