Worth Posting In Full

A reply to a blog post

If LDL is the end all be all of heart disease then how do you explain the fact that omega 3 supplementation reduces heart attack incidence even though it raises LDL levels (1)(2)(3)(4)

"DHA supplementation from algal oil, a marine source of (n-3) fatty acids not extracted from fish, may reduce serum TG and increase HDL-C and LDL-C in persons without coronary heart disease"

Hmmm, isn't saturated fat demonized for the same effects on HDL, triglycerides and LDL ?

The lyon diet heart study was the most successful of it's kind, it reduced heart attack incidence by 70%. Their were no differecnes in total blood cholesterol between the control and intervention group (5) although the intervention group had higher blood levels of antioxidants and omega 3's.

You like animal studies don't you peter ? So here's one especially for you.

BHT reduces athersclerosis in rabbits even though it raises LDL levels (6)

Did you also know that linoleic acid significantly reduces LDL cholesterol levels ?

Therefore according to your statemnt that "No matter what mechanism is used, lowering LDL cholesterol will results in lower rate of cardiovascular events" we should expect to see reduced cardivascular events when we replace saturated fats with omega linoleic acid. What do we see ?

A two fold increase in incidents in the sydney heart study and four fold increase in the rose corn oil trial (7) Whoooops. Oh yeah and cholesterol levels were reduced in both trials

Atherosclerotic plaque contains an unusually high amount of linoleic acid and the linoleic acid content of plaque correlates well with dietary intake (

"These findings imply a direct influence of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids on aortic plaque formation and suggest that current trends favouring increased intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids should be reconsidered"

This was almost 20 years ago ...

Did you know that carotid plaque contains high levels of oxdized LDL and there is no correlation between oxidized LDL levels and total LDL levels ? (9)

Did you know that higher levles of oxidized LDL are correlated with greater heart attack risk regardless of total LDL levels (10)

"A potential causative role in atherosclerosis and heart disease
has indeed been detected for oxidized LDL, but this form of LDL
shows no correlation with serum levels of native LDL. Rather,
individual antioxidant status appears to be a ke factor influencing
serum concentrations of oxidized LDL" (11)


Heres an idea peter/richard (whatever the hell your name is)

Maybe it's not saturated fat and cholesterol thats causing heart disease. Maybe it's the overconsumption of linoleic acid and the underconsumption of long chain omega 3's, a sedentary lifestyle, stress, smoking, a lack of antioxidants, vitamins and minerlas, sleep deprivation, excess adiposity, refined carbohydrates, high temperature cooking etc etc etc.

It's clear from the above evidence that LDL is not the end all be all of heart disease.








1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16825676

2. http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2011/11/22/jn.111.148973

3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10189324

4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11997274

5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7911176

6.http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/11/1/15.short

7. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21118617

8.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7934543

9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12377744

10. http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/53/4/1068.short

11.http://www.jpands.org/vol10no3/colpo.pdf

Thanks Chris. That's another quality post I'm going to have to come back to when I am less tired.

Can you name the blog?

It was on Whole Health Source. I used to have a lot of time for Stephan Guyenet up until he became a Professional Researcher and then decided insulin had nothing to do with obesity and it was all down to "food reward", a concept I still have some trouble deciphering into Real World logic.

Yeah sure, Taubes was probably wrong to concentrate on insulin to the exclusion of many other relevent factors, some of which weren't known or understood when he researched his book, but to claim insulin doesn't actually do what it does seems futile. I decided Guyenet didn't appear to comprehend that his paymasters wanted "food reward" to be true so they could exploit it and make even more addictive foods, and they didn't want to know about insulin in case it meant they had to pay attention to carb content of the crap they were marketing, and stopped reading him. Especially since C*rbs*ne became a valued contributor.

I've been going back in the cold light of history, this was back around the end of 2012. Some of the commenters still wrote some sense and had some good references, as you can see.

The reply was in response to a Militant Vegan invasion.