The Cholesterol Times, Issue #001 -- Research Corruption and More

[Guest guest]

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 22:39:06 UT

Christopher Masterjohn "

<The_Cholesterol_Times

The Cholesterol Times, Issue #001 -- Research Corruption and More

 

 

 

 

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 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

# Disclaimer

 

Updates

 

The Amazing, Overnight Success of Cholesterol-and-Health.com

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Success.html

 

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

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/The-Cholesterol-Myths.html

 

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

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Nourishing-Traditions.html

 

Read this review of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions and how it

saved my health.

 

Know Your Fats! -- Review

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Know-Your-Fats.html

 

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

http://neurobiologyoflipids.org/editors/alexeikoudinov/pdfdocs/submittedletters/\

koudinovwrittenevidence.pdf

 

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

http://www.neto.com/rcr/outbac98.html#topic2

 

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!

 

Butter Is a Health Food

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/stemm5.html

 

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,

http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/abstract/00-0815fjev1?maxtoshow= & HITS=10 & hits=\

10 & RESULTFORMAT= & author1=koudinov & andorexactfulltext=and & searchid=1124213434851_\

2078 & stored_search= & FIRSTINDEX=0 & sortspec=relevance & resourcetype=1 & journalcode=f\

asebj

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,

http://www.westonaprice.org/conference/conference2005/index.html

 

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.

http://www.stayatmarriott.com/westonapricefoundation2005conference/

 

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.

 

Feel free to forward this newsletter to your family and friends, and

encourage them to , free, here.