I’ll never have teh $$$ to go to a big name hospital. Retired military and I’m haven’t seen an actual DOCTOR at a checkup in years.
But...If I go to the Mayo Clinic website I find:
“Because some fats are potentially helpful and others are potentially harmful to your health, it pays to know which ones you’re eating and whether you’re meeting recommendations. The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans offers the following recommendations about fat intake:
Avoid trans fat.
Limit saturated fat to less than 10 percent of calories a day.
Replace saturated fat with healthier monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.”
Oddly enough, I cannot find any research article linking dietary consumption of saturated fat and death from heart disease.
In fact, the preoccupation of doctors with total cholesterol in the blood and cutting it via ddrugs suggests (to me) that lots of doctors don’t know much. When you have doctors suggesting as many as 97% of older people would benefit from taking statins, I have to wonder what planet these people live on.
“This forms the basis of the ACC/AHA recommendations on statins for primary prevention—namely, that statins are indicated for patients between 40 and 75 years of age with diabetes, LDL greater than 190, or a 10-year ASCVD risk of greater than 7.5%. While it has been estimated that 97% of individuals between 65 and 75 years of age meet criteria for a statin by these guidelines, there is no specific recommendation for adults over the age of 75 due to their under-inclusion in pivotal clinical trials.” - American College of Cardiology
Note: The actual article at least points out that statins in the elderly isn’t as simple as some suggest, so good for them.
Sorry. FWIW, a doctor put my wife on statins because her total cholesterol was 205. That’s it: “Your total cholesterol is too high so you need to go on statins.” She quit within weeks because of pain in her joints, and that pain has taken two years to go away (finally!). We’re on “Tricare”, which means the Internet may be a step UP from the medical people we see. But...would someone care to explain just how significant “total cholesterol” is in a woman over 60? Or why 205 is excessive?
Sorry for the spelling errors. My wife is finally without knee pain and we did a 2 hour hike in the mountains today. Both of us are now tired...but it is good to be able to scramble over rocks and go up and down the hills with my wife again.
Still, need to proofread before hitting post.
How do you separate politics and $$$ recommendations from science?
E.g. the expose "Sugar blues" showed Harvard took $$$ to market sugar as healthy; Ancel Keys at Minnesota destroyed the health of a generation through cherry picking data on dietary fats; and of course there's a Nobelist out there who challenged conventional wisdom on ulcers.
In particular, do you know just *which* Nimrod is responsible for arbitrarily redefining HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE as 120/80? That used to be "perfectly normal..."
mine over 300. I lowered it for awhile with spin class twice a week and a rigid oatmeal breakfast with fruit, light lunch/dinner. But STILL 245...I have not been back for a reading lately quit exercising because got busy sewing...