Posted on 09/28/2024 5:29:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of Americans. However, having high cholesterol levels doesn’t always lead to heart disease, a South Florida cardiac specialist has discovered.
Dr. Jonathan Fialkow, deputy director of clinical cardiology at Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, said a study of 80 people on the low-carbohydrate ketogenic (KETO) diet for nearly five years found that high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, LDL-C (often referred to as bad cholesterol), didn’t always lead to coronary plaque buildup or heart disease.
“This is because they (participants on the KETO diet) are metabolically healthy,” Fialkow said. “This shows that high LDLs might not be the risk for heart disease we thought it would be.”
This study, published in the American College of Cardiology Journal, compared 80 people with an average age of 55 on low-carb/ high-protein and fat diets with 80 people enrolled in a Miami heart study and not on a special diet.
“They had the same level of disease risk,” Fialkow said. “The study found no increased progression in either group.”
Researchers concluded there was no association between cholesterol levels and plaque burden in either group. So, as long as people do not consume lots of sugar and carbohydrates, they may not be at risk for heart disease, even if they have high cholesterol.
The results could influence how doctors approach cholesterol management in patients, Fiaklow said. Doctors should not ignore high levels of LDL (bad cholesterol) when treating patients, but they now know other factors should be considered before prescribing medications. “Patient risk assessment should be personalized and precise,” Fialkow said. “The pushback comes from generations who believe fat is bad and cholesterol is bad, but that is not substantiated by evidence,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
This is what I think and doesn't apply to all meds.
Some pills will change your "numbers"...but they do not change your condition. Your body is constantly changing. Stop the pills and the numbers will change back.
All the people I know that were on statins...stopped taking them.
>> “The pushback comes from generations who believe fat is bad and cholesterol is bad, but that is not substantiated by evidence,”<<
Odd isn’t it? You need Cholesterol to make your brain function properly, so let’s artificially lower it. Almost like they’re trying to dumb everyone down. Oh, right, I guess the Fluoride wasn’t doing it properly.
Me too..............
I’m thinking that the medical/food/nutrition community has finally OVERSTEPPED and are making people sick as hell and they’re FINALLY wising up to it.
Another example - A 65 year old guy that I know was told to get his blood pressure down to 120 (the high number!) - not being an idiot, he found that 153 is optimal for his age, so that’s his real target. Needless to say, he won’t get near stains either.
Then I took a test and voila....my bad cholesterol was up.
A couple months later...during which I ate no cheese....I did the test again.....voila....my bad cholesterol had gone down to within a normal range.
I mean...think about it....they tell you to fast to start with....
I'm sure nothing really changed in my body during those 2 cheese free months.
Probably unrelated, but at least a true story.
I can eat carbs at breakfast and dinner with no immediate problem. At lunchtime it’s another matter. If I have a sandwich and a cookie, I’ll fall asleep for at least two hours in the afternoon. I don’t get to make it up by staying up late at night and getting up early in the morning.
Now I try to limit myself to a half sandwich at lunch. When I do that, I can stay awake. It adds at least two more wakeful hours to my day.
Yet statin use results in 20-30% lower all cause mortality.
The function may not be well understood, but the outcomes are pretty dramatic.
I’ll keep taking the pills until someone explains to me why the vastly lower death rate is somehow a bad thing.
If you set up the standard as a comparison between swallowing a daily pill and doing nothing, you have your answer.
Ya gotta do something to improve your health.
If you set up the test to only view mortality and not disease as a result of the pill, you have your answer.
But, when you get alzheimers, you will not remember you took pills anyway, so it's all good.
“Yet statin use results in 20-30% lower all cause mortality.”
No they do not! Hell, EVERYONE would take them if they did! Seriously: People taking statins are already higher risk - or they would not be told to take them. If someone is at risk, and does nothing, then they will be at higher risk than someone who does something - and statins CAN impact that. Sometimes.
But I just reviewed several studies that claim to back up your statement, and they are garbage studies. For example, NONE OF THEM compared statins to simply changing one’s bad diet and starting exercise. I do agree: Someone who is eating crap and doesn’t exercise will often be better taking a statin than doing nothing at all.
But that does NOT make taking a statin the first or best option. And lowering LDL for the sake of lowering it - same with total cholesterol - is DUMB. LDL is bad cholesterol. Or good cholesterol. Depends on the LDL and why it is there!
Sweet spot for all cause mortality with total cholesterol is 190-260, not “below 200”. We NEED cholesterol and a healthy body eating a good diet WILL have LDL levels above 100. Our bodies create and manage cholesterol - but there is a huge difference between a body that is being abused by bad food and sitting around and a proper functioning body.
The solution is not trying to hide the abuse, but to remove it and allow the body to heal based on reality rather than Band-Aids!
Is this a study on the fallacy of the lipid hypothesis, or biased promotion of an unhealthy fad by keto sycophants?
Yep. I heard low cholesterol leads to Alzheimer’s. Makes total sense.
I try to eat 4 eggs every day.
No, it does not.
You really need to get a grip on reading pro-medical inflammatory - ahem - headlines and dive into the meat of the data.
If you don’t understand the results in the study below, then you have no business promoting such inflammatory statistics which weight your (erroneous) confirmation bias.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2812582
As best I could tell from the study, it compared to a population that was specific, with particular triglyceride totals and ratios. My impression was this Keto approach was aimed at that specific profile — which was NOT the general, or even typical, population.
Best to recall that #1 cause of death is heart disease, but only until about age 60. Thereafter it is cancer.
I know there are people out there who have developed a hate for the VA, for whatever reason. I am not one of them. I have been impressed. If you want the latest data on statin use and cholesterol management, search for VA-based brochures or studies. The VA funds a LOT of medical studies because they have such an enormous, long duration, database and they are typically excellent.
You hit the nail on the head...you are prescribed statins because you have a pre-existing condition. You will never really know if they are prolonging your life.
I am taking a statin and my cholesterol was normal. It has other very beneficial effects. Same for medicines for blood pressure and sugar. These numbers trend higher as you age and that’s considered normal. But not good. Take the medicine to lower intracranial blood pressure, take the load off your kidneys, and mitigate the damage from sugar.
Metformin was a 1000 year old natural cure before the gov regulated it.
Carbs weren’t a thing until cheap carbs, via subsidized corn, became pervasive.
Well the way the results you quoted are true, but quite misleading. Lets pretend 0.8% of people on statins have a bad outcome, and 1.0% of people not on statins have a bad outcome. It improved 20% (from 1 to 0.8, called relative risk reduction) but practically speaking the real risk reduction is 0.2% (absolute risk reduction), which is quite small. Similarly lets say you have a 5% chance of getting diabetes with statins vs 4% without. In this case the supporters of statins tend to quote the absolute difference of 1% rather than the relative risk of 20%. Here are some real numbers provided by perplexity
Composite Cardiovascular Outcomes
Relative risk reduction: 28% (RR 0.72)
Absolute risk reduction: 1.28%
NNT: 78
New-onset Diabetes
Relative risk increase: 4% overall, 25% for high-intensity statins
Absolute risk increase: 0.49% over 5 years
NNH: 204
So the proponents would quote a 28% benefit and a 0.49% chance of harm for statins, which is apples and oranges. The real benefit of statins is on the order of 1%. So overall, the benefit of statins for low risk people is very small in my opinion. This technique of swapping relative and absolute risk reductions is quite common in studies intended to sell a certain position.
Thank you for your direct and understandable explanation.
Are these the real numbers?
“Composite Cardiovascular Outcomes
Relative risk reduction: 28% (RR 0.72)
Absolute risk reduction: 1.28%
NNT: 78
New-onset Diabetes
Relative risk increase: 4% overall, 25% for high-intensity statins
Absolute risk increase: 0.49% over 5 years
NNH: 204”
If so, should I understand that there is a very minor trade going on between cardiovascular improvement (+1.28%) and diabetes harm (-0.49%)? That’s negligible stuff when taking on a serious medication. Indeed if those are real numbers, I’ll have a deeper chat about whether the statin is worthwhile with my doc.
Thanks again for what appears to be science rather than invective.
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