This posting is a response to Linda’s email addressed to me recently. But before I do I want to state categorically that I have no competing interests commercially or otherwise that would compromise the views I hold regarding the cholesterol issue.
Firstly I would like to thank Linda for contacting me directly and gently steering me back to the reasons Heart UK was established. She is wholly correct in her concerns. I have re-read the guidelines on response to postings and I concur absolutely. I have also taken time out to think, make notes and formulate a measured reply. So if you are reading this and wondering why I haven’t immediately responded it’s because I am choosing my words carefully.
It was never my intention to upset anyone, as that would be counterproductive to the message I would like to share. I acknowledge that my style of writing was (I emphasise was) a little confrontational. So to the people I have upset, I apologise. In my defence I can assure everyone that my attitude was born principally out of frustration and anger at the status quo. All my life, if I have any talent, I have been a problem solver, and my frustration is that this is a problem that is way outside my my comfort zone. However, the problem still needs fixing and therein lies my philosophy. There is an elephant in the room that is not only unacknowledged but is stomping people to death. Only today I heard that 350,000 people in the North West have diabetes - mainly type 2, and there has been an increase of 15,000 over the last year. Here’s another recent headline:
Diabetes type 2 drug market "to nearly double by 2020"
Diabetes and heart disease are two sides of the same coin and this drives me crazy, as it’s so unnecessary and potentially so easy to fix.
Before I continue you deserve to hear the journey that led me to my first post on Heart UK.
My name is Mike Pollard, I am 62 this November and this time last year I weighed fourteen stone five and a half pounds. Dimly in the recesses of my mind I heard a faint trumpeting and looking in the mirror I acknowledged the elephant staring back at me.
I therefore, yet again, decided to address the issue by the usual and conventional route. I accepted the ‘calories in, calories out’ protocol as self evident and started counting those damned calories. Having started the journey, and my interest sparked in things nutritional, I embarked on an idle trawl on the internet - initially to amuse myself at the lunatics and shysters whose agendas generally fall into ego massage or trying to separate folk from their hard earned cash. I was amused because I knew better, but among the posts on YouTube I came across there was other stuff, which when viewed, started to wipe the self satisfied smirk off my face and challenge my ‘know it all’ attitude. This is where my journey, and my current (I emphasise ‘current’) standpoint is founded. What had started as a personal simple weight loss program took on a new dimension.
Health!
Filtering out the lunatic fringe I started clicking on stuff that had more serious content. Again, more from amusement than problem solving (for I did not consider myself other than a cosmetically challenged slob) I continued to mine information.
Moving on from the nonsense I started to click on to people who wore serious faces. I then moved from there to people who’s serious faces reflected the serious nature of their research. So having rejected the egregious, I started looking with the eyes of the serious and from there bought books, borrowed books and widened my search criteria. Bear in mind the people who were attracting my interest were, among many; heart surgeons, doctors, microbiologists, PHD’s, scientists, statisticians etc. I have looked at the issues from all angles - being ruthless in challenging my own prejudices and prising mistakes out of claims that might even agree with my prejudices but were wrong. In short I’d look for flaws in the science that I would generally agree with (and I found a few). I have established my baseline of one of ‘If you can’t present me with solid science, you have no basis for argument.’
That’s where my focus on losing weight faded and I became focused on the reasons behind the obesity epidemic that is killing people in massive numbers worldwide.
Cutting a long story short, and amongst all my perambulations, I came to a fundamental conclusion that is in essence the nub of the problem but deeply flawed:
Eat cholesterol/saturated fat and your heart is doomed!
But maybe there is a solution to obesity - if you follow the lead of television programs such ‘The Biggest Loser’.
Seriously, this is a very big deal, and needs to be properly addressed. In essence ‘stop eating artery clogging saturated fat, replace it with heart healthy grains etc’ and you’ll be OK’.
This is the message, and people have largely got that message.
So here we are. From the 70’s and 80’s people have got on the program; fat consumption has dropped and wholesome carbohydrate has taken its place.
People know what to do and are dutifully following the guidelines!
Go to your supermarket and look at the the range of low fat stuff on the shelves. The message is hammered at us from the government, television, newspapers and magazines on a daily basis yet the obesity crisis is on an exponential curve. People get the message and they are buying the heart heathy options but all the time their weight is increasing, as are their markers for serious, really serious disease.
And you know what the real tragedy is?
It’s unnecessary and what is more, it’s not the fault of supposed weakness of character!
The ‘lack of self control’ factor is totally unfair. ‘Eat less, move more’ is the mantra. There are thousands of people following a weight loss/health regime who stand on the scales on a weekly basis and look down in despair. They ask themselves with a sad little voice,‘What’s the matter with me?’
There is nothing the matter with you!
You are being driven by biology, and biology is a far more powerful imperator than willpower
Is this you? If it is it is I say again:
It’s not your fault!
Why?
Look around you. Look to your garden, look to the countryside, look at the David Attenborough’s ‘Life on Earth’ series. Have you ever seen an overweight wild animal with health issues (other than being eaten)? I haven’t and you haven’t either, because it is unnatural to be overweight and obese and it is unnatural that so many of us are at risk of heart disease. My wife keeps chickens, and no matter how much food we put out for them their weight on a day to day basis never changes a jot. They have a natural set point commensurate with their lifestyle which never varies. We have overridden our natural biofeedback with regard to our diet and lifestyle and are paying a heavy price - not least in bewilderment!
Extrapolating from the above it is also unnatural to view wholesome food with suspicion and fear. It’s just not right. In my, and a growing body of peoples’ opinion, the current thinking is focused on symptoms and treatment when the causes are not being addressed
If what I’ve stated above has any resonance, then there is a massive dissonance and disconnect with what we are told and the reality of the consequences.
Most of the notes I felt so important to the issue when I started writing I have not used, nor the hugely significant (at least to me) detail that has led me to my stance. I have therefore left out those issues so as to establish a baseline for discussion. If there is interest I can include that information at a later date.
So, in opening the issue of the whole cholesterol thing, I would ask you to consider why a man such as I, articulate and informed, would challenge the established protocol if it were to prematurely cost me my life, my wife’s life and the lives of my children? Maybe you are fully informed and have made your choice, and that’s fine by me, but I still think that the issues need to be aired.
I’m not going to save the world with whatever I have to say or believe, no matter how accurate or otherwise, but what I will stress is that you do your own research and make your own mind up. My job, as I see, it is to point you in the direction where you can make an informed choice, so as a stepping stone you might like to consider the following, taken from The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics:
"For decades, enormous human and financial resources have been wasted on the cholesterol campaign, more promising research areas have been neglected, producers and manufacturers of animal food all over the world have suffered economically, and millions of healthy people have been frightened and badgered into eating a tedious and flavourless diet or into taking potentially dangerous drugs for the rest of their lives. As the scientific evidence in support of the cholesterol campaign is non-existent, we consider it important to stop it as soon as possible.? The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) is a steadily growing group of scientists, physicians, other academicians and science writers from various countries. Members of this group represent different views about the causation of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, some of them are in conflict with others, but this is a normal part of science. What we all oppose is that animal fat and high cholesterol play a role. The aim with this website is to inform our colleagues and the public that this idea is not supported by scientific evidence; in fact, for many years a huge number of scientific studies have directly contradicted it."
Ancel Keyes, the father of the lipid hypothesis said the following in 1997:
“There’s no connection whatsoever between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood. And we’ve known that all along. Cholesterol in the diet doesn’t matter at all unless you happen to be a chicken or a rabbit.”
I’ll end this discourse with a simple question.
Would you like to discuss the cholesterol hypothesis?
Regards,
Mike Pollard.
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