Guest guest Posted January 11, 2003 Report Share Posted January 11, 2003 Kendrick is at it again -- another shot at the immortal cholesterol theory http://www.redflagsweekly.com/kendrick/2002_dec23.html MALCOLM KENDRICK, MD December 23, 2002 WHY THE CHOLESTEROL-HEART DISEASE THEORY IS WRONG Women, Heart Disease And Sex Hormones (Part Five) - (begin the series<A HREF= " http://www.redflagsweekly.com/kendrick/2002_nov28.html " > here</A>) By Malcolm Kendrick MbChB, MRCGP (email -<A HREF= " malcolm " > malcolm</A> ) Women don’t’ suffer as much CHD as men - of the same age - despite having slightly higher LDL levels. I’m talking here about women under the age of about seventy. After that the statistics become horribly inaccurate and, in the end, we all have to die of something. For years and years it was suggested that women were protected against LDL by their sex hormones. In fact the ‘sex hormones protect women against CHD’ hypothesis became an accepted fact, a given. Like most people, I accepted it too, in " a kind of, I can’t be bothered checking out every fact that I hear, " sort of a way. Anyway, superficially, it made sense. Women have similar risk factors (usually higher LDL levels), they suffer about one third the rate of CHD, and they have hormones. Ergo, it is the hormones that protect women. Nice and simple: To quote H.L. Mencken on simple solutions. ‘For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable, and wrong.’ However, as with almost every other known ‘fact’ about CHD, if you do choose to look for the evidence, it doesn’t exist. For years I assumed that someone had carried out a massive pivotal trial proving that female sex hormones really were protective. But when I went to look for it, I found that the cupboard was bare. This fact, quoted endlessly, with utter conviction, is based on absolutely nothing at all. It is true that oestrogen and progesterone (as we call them in the UK), have some beneficial impact on lipids and blood coagulability, but in fact, if you look hard enough you can find effects on almost everything in the cardiovascular system. Any of these effects could, theoretically, have some protective benefit. And lo it was decided that these ’test-tube’ benefits really were important. Perhaps the most important of these effects was an increase in High Density Lipoproteins (HDLs), otherwise known as ‘Good Cholesterol.’ I love the idea of good and bad cholesterol; it’s like something out of Star Wars. ‘This cholesterol has gone over to the dark side… " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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