JLL said:
misterE said:
You have got to be kidding!
No, I'm not kidding, and you failed to counterargument what I said. The ONLY evidence we have for high total cholesterol being associated with disease is the Seven Countries study by Ancel Keys -- which cherry-picked statistics from seven countries and left the rest out just to prove a point.
Here's what the association between total cholesterol and mortality/CHD looks like when you include all the countries:
http://freetheanimal.com/2009/09/saturated-fat-intake-vs-heart-disease-stroke.html
http://www.canibaisereis.com/2009/09/19/low-cholesterol-certainly-not-healthy/
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that high cholesterol causes low mortality, but it surely shows that the claim "high cholesterol causes heart attack" is false. And again, the more important thing is a worsening of the LDL/HDL ratio, high triglycerides, and the oxidation of LDL. Even the scientists who hate on saturated fat admit that much. And what causes all of these? Excess carbohydrate consumption, possibly PUFAs. Not saturated fat. Yes, saturated fat increases total cholesterol, but so what?
misterE said:
Here in the U.S.A. we have an epidemic of heart disease, atherosclerosis, breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes and much more... The meat and dairy is the number one contributor to these epidemics. And what adds fuel to the fire is the fact that the meat and dairy industry uses powerful growth hormones and anti-biotics, which wreak havoc on the endocrine system!
This is just your own speculation. How do you know it's the meat and dairy? Are these people on an all-meat, all-dairy diet? No. They also eat a diet high in processed vegetable oils and carbs. Why are you not blaming those, when the evidence points that they are the real problem?
misterE said:
I've said it before, other countries with a low-fat/high-fiber starch based diet rich in fruit and vegetables have no atherosclerosis, breast cancer, prostate cancer and diabetes, not to mention hair loss (China and India pops into my mind as an example).
Well this is just wrong. China and India have high rates of hair loss. The consumption of saturated animal fats has gone DOWN in India, "healthy" vegetable oil consumption is up, many of them are vegetarians, and yet heart disease is going up all the time (
link). Further, in areas where saturated fat consumption is higher, heart attacks are less common than in areas where fat consumption is low (
link).
Heart disease is America's number one killer, taking as many lives as almost everything else combined. Every day, 3,000 Americans suffer from heart attacks, and more than 1,200 of them die. Those who don't die often suffer another heart attack later. Because we now know what causes heart attacks, we can prevent them.
Since the early 1970s, study after study after study has implicated cow's milk and other dairy products as a cause of heart disease and clogged arteries. One researcher, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn from the Cleveland Clinic (the top-rated heart clinic in the U.S.), makes people "heart attack-proof" by putting them on a vegan diet (check out his groundbreaking paper in the American Journal of Cardiology, August 99).
It's not just the fat and cholesterol in dairy products, but also the animal protein and milk carbohydrates that are linked to heart disease, as the following studies show:
"International statistics indicate that
there is a close correlation between the consumption of saturated fats (dairy fats and meat fats) and the mortality from coronary heart disease, and this conception has been confirmed by many epidemiological studies," concluded a study published in Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association. "Practically total replacement of dairy fats by vegetable oils in the diets … was followed by a substantial reduction in the mortality of men from coronary heart disease. Total mortality also appeared to be reduced." (1)
In a study published in the International Journal of Cardiology, researchers studied seven countries with a high consumption of dairy products and found that
heart disease mortality rose as milk supply rose. (2)
In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers wrote, "Much evidence suggests that high consumption of full-fat dairy products is likely to increase coronary heart disease risk" and noted that "there are strong reasons to believe that a causal association does exist." (3)
Researchers who studied dietary links to heart disease in 32 countries found that, of all dietary factors studied,
milk carbohydrates played the biggest role in the development of heart disease in men over 35, and nonfat milk played the biggest role in the development of coronary heart disease in men over 45. (4)
Researchers studying 19 Western countries concluded that heart disease mortality rises as consumption of milk protein rises. The researchers noted, "Multiple regression analysis confirmed the importance of the milk factor … as a determinant of variation in ischemic heart disease mortality rates." (5)
"Milk consumption is related to arteriosclerosis," confirmed yet another group of researchers. "Recent landmark studies confirm a previously suspected close correlation between milk intake and arteriosclerotic heart disease."(6)
A study of food consumption and heart disease in 24 countries concluded, "Direct, linear, and reasonably accurate correlation has been found between coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality rates and the consumption of unfermented milk proteins-namely the protein content of all dairy products with the only important exception of cheese." (7)
"It is clear that saturated fats, mainly dairy fats, are closely associated with the mortality rate from ischaemic heart disease," wrote researchers in the Journal of Internal Medicine. (8)
In a study published in Nutrition, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Disease, researchers wrote,
"a reduction in meat and dairy products … will decrease other cardiovascular risk factors, particularly cholesterol and glucose intolerance. This healthier diet will reduce cardiovascular disease and is similar to the diet now being advocated for the prevention of some forms of cancer." They also noted, "Diet is by far the most important environmental factor determining our longevity, and for those who wish to live longer, a change in diet as early in life as possible will have substantial effects." (9)
In a study published in The Lancet, researchers comparing heart disease death rates with food intake found that the highest correlation was with milk. "Changes in milk-protein consumption, up or down, accurately predicted changes in coronary deaths four to seven years later."
The researchers noted that their analysis "strongly supports" previous conclusions that milk is the principle dietary culprit in hardened, narrowed arteries and that the problematic portion of milk is its protein, not its fat. (10)
A study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology found that
butter and milk consumption had a positive correlation with heart disease. (11)
A study that compared coronary death rates with food intakes in 21 countries found that the
food most highly correlated with coronary deaths was milk. (12)
"Both cholesterol and saturated fat in your diet may increase blood levels of cholesterol and increase the formation of plaque (blockages) in your arteries," says Dr. Dean Ornish of the University of California at San Francisco, who has demonstrated that
artery blockages can be reversed with a low-fat vegan diet instead of expensive and invasive surgeries. "[One] might consider switching from nonfat milk to nonfat soy milk, as I have done. This will give you a double benefit: Soy milk has no cholesterol, and soy products may actually lower your blood cholesterol levels."
The world-renowned health advisor to President Clinton, Dr. John McDougall concurs: "The wisest way to prevent tragedies from a defective blood vessel system is to deal with the cause: Your first-line therapy should be a low-fat, no-cholesterol diet."
1 Osmo Turpeinen, "Effect of Cholesterol-Lowering Diet on Mortality From Coronary Heart Disease and Other Causes," Circulation, 59, No. 1 (1979), 1-7.
2 J. Segall, "Dietary Lactose as a Possible Risk Factor for Ischaemic Heart Disease: Review of Epidemiology," International Journal of Cardiology, 46, No. 3 (1994), 197-207.
3 Lawrence Kushi, Elizabeth Lenary, and Walter Willette, "Health Implications of Mediterranean Diets in Light of Contemporary Knowledge: Plant foods and Dairy Products." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (suppl.), 61 (1995), 1407S-1415S.
4 William Grant, "Milk and Other Dietary Influences on Coronary Heart Disease," Alternative Medicine Review, 3, No. 4 (1998), 281-294.
5 R. Popham, W. Schmidt, and Y. Israel, "Variation in Mortality From Ischemic Heart Disease in Relation to Alcohol and Milk Consumption," Medical Hypotheses, 12, No. 4 (1983), 321-329.
6 P. Rank, "Milk and Arteriosclerosis," Medical Hypotheses, 20, No. 3 (1986), 317-338.
7 S. Seely, "Diet and Coronary Disease: A Survey of Mortality Rates and Food Consumption Statistics of 24 Countries," Medical Hypotheses, 7, No. 7 (1981), 907-918.
8 S. Renaud and M. de Lorgeril, "Dietary Lipids and Their Relation to Ischaemic Heart Disease: From Epidemoiology to Prevention," Journal of Internal Medicine (suppl.), 225, No. 731 (1989), 39-46.
9 G. MacGregor, "Nutrition and Blood Pressure," Nutrition, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Disease, 9, No. 4 (1999), 6-15.
10 M. Moss and D.L.J. Freed, “Survival Trends, Coronary Event Rates, and the MONICA Project,†The Lancet 354 (1999): 862.
11 A. Menotti, D. Kromhout, H. Blackburn, F. Fidanza, R. Buzina, and A. Nissinen, "Food Intake Patterns and 25-Year Mortality from Coronary Heart Disease: Cross-Cultural Correlations in the Seven Countries Study," European Journal of Epidemiology, 15, No. 6 (1999), 507-515.
12 S. Seely, "Diet and Coronary Heart Disease: A Survey of Female Mortality Rates and Food Consumption Statistics of 21 Countries," Medical Hypotheses, 7, No. 9 (1981), 1133-1137.
uke:
