Malcolm Kendrick

Drum Roll Please ...LOL!

Dr Kendrick has just posted Part 54 of his epic
'What Cause's Heart Disease'

Find it here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/08/31/what-causes-heart-disease-part-54/

Happy reading!

All the best Jan

Dr Kendrick has just published ...

What causes heart disease part 55 – albumin

Please see his blog here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/09/17/what-causes-heart-disease-part-55-albumin/

All the best Jan

Glad to see he got rid of the vegan troll who was taking over. How often do you see low carbers invading vegan blogs or Twitter feeds? (I don't know the answer as I don't look).

His isn't even a low carb blog although many contributors do LCHF/keto but they just can't keep from proselytising.

Once one vegan star a crusade soon others will follow. Better to have stopped it before it got too far or they would have taken over the blog and they can be so annoying. They think they know it all and people who are not vegan are ignorant so they have to go and teach them. When that is what most people are running from since they have already gone thru the "official" industry sponsored vegan agenda.

Latest Post from Dr Kendrick

Peter Gøtzsche – a scandal

"As many of you now know, Peter Gøtzsche was recently expelled from the Cochrane Collaboration. I was going to write a blog on it, but Maryanne Demasi has already written an excellent blog which covers most of what I was going to say. I would recommend that everyone reads it"


Dr Kendricks post here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/09/19/peter-gotzsche-a-scandal/

Maryanne Demasi post here
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2018/09/16/cochrane-a-sinking-ship/

All the best Jan

yoly wrote:Once one vegan star a crusade soon others will follow. Better to have stopped it before it got too far or they would have taken over the blog and they can be so annoying. They think they know it all and people who are not vegan are ignorant so they have to go and teach them. When that is what most people are running from since they have already gone thru the "official" industry sponsored vegan agenda.

Yup been there done that, passed my first gallstone and had my first attack of gout in addition to the glucose/insulin problem while eating an Ornish-style high carb low fat vegan diet which in those days was called macrobiotic.

They don't have clue one about agriculture either.

Jan1 wrote:Latest Post from Dr Kendrick

Peter Gøtzsche – a scandal

"As many of you now know, Peter Gøtzsche was recently expelled from the Cochrane Collaboration. I was going to write a blog on it, but Maryanne Demasi has already written an excellent blog which covers most of what I was going to say. I would recommend that everyone reads it"


Dr Kendricks post here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/09/19/peter-gotzsche-a-scandal/

Maryanne Demasi post here
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2018/09/16/cochrane-a-sinking-ship/

All the best Jan

All part of the fightback of religion against science.

He's at it again!

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/09/23/what-causes-heart-disease-part-56-a-new-paper/

The paper

Inborn coagulation factors are more important cardiovascular risk factors than high LDL-cholesterol in familial hypercholesterolemia

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987718304729

Allegedly open access for fifty days, I had no problem downloading it but others have, so don't know what was happening there. I used Opera, maybe the others were using Internet Explorer.

Dr Kendrik has just published Part 57 of What causes heart disease

It's to do with Blood pressure … he writes:

"I have tended to avoid talking about blood pressure, because I am not entirely sure what I think about it as a cause of CVD. However, since more people now take blood pressure lowering medication than any other type of medication in the world, including statins, it wold be remiss of me not to at least mention it.

Another problem is that, whilst blood pressure may seem a very simple subject. Either it is high, or it is not, nothing could be further from the truth. It is immensely complicated, and fragments rapidly into thousands of different strands, looping and whirling in front of you.

For example, let us take an apparently simple question, what is a high blood pressure? Well, with almost every passing year, this changes. The experts and the guideline writers get together on a regular basis and decide that well, hey ho, we thought 140/90 was high, turns out we are wrong. It is 130/85 – or whatever. By the way, the definition of a ‘normal’ blood pressure always goes down – never up. On current trends we should hit 0/0mmHg by the year 2067. What happens after that is hard to say.

I suppose a question that may seem reasonable to ask is the following; is average normal. Not, not even slightly. In a similar fashion to blood cholesterol levels, average and normal do not even remotely match up. Last time I looked eighty-five per cent of the population in almost all Western countries had high cholesterol levels. I would suspect another eighty-five per cent have high blood pressure.

In fact, if you wish to stretch logic to its very boundaries it is possible to propose that 99.9% of the population has a high blood pressure level. How can this make any sort of sense, you may ask? Well, in a moment of ennui I opened the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) risk calculator. You can find it here. http://www.cvriskcalculator.com/

I put in all my risk factors, kept them all the same, apart from my blood pressure which I started moving up and down, as you do when there is nothing good on the TV. What I found was that, as I reduced my blood pressure on the calculator, my CV risk went down, and down, until I got to a systolic (upper figure) of 90mmHg. You cannot make your blood pressure go any lower than this on the calculator.

The reason why you cannot get your blood pressure below 90mmHg is that if you go below this figure, you will be diagnosed with hypotension. Hypo = low. So, we have the weird situation whereby at 90mmHg your blood pressure is perfect. Above this, your risk of CVD goes up, below this the pressure is dangerously low and should be raised.

Therefore, at exactly 90mmHg your blood pressure is ‘normal’. At any other pressure it is abnormal – in that it increases the risk of death. Which is the definition of any ‘abnormal’ clinical test. It must be said that this constitutes a pretty narrow range. A doctor should be trying to keep your systolic blood pressure between 90mmHg and 90mmHg. And good luck with that. A very delicate titration indeed.
Clearly this is nuts, and it is not based on any clinical data whatsoever. There has never been a study whereby the systolic blood pressure has been lowered to 90mmHg. Nor will there ever be one done. This, I can guarantee. The mortality rate would be catastrophic.
So, how is this figure arrived at?

It comes from a mathematical smoothing technique whereby you get all the points on a graph, then draw the ‘best fit’ line through them all. I include an example here, which is where someone (Zoe Harcombe actually) looked at the cholesterol levels and rate of death from CVD in every country in the world (these are the dots). As you can see everything is rather scattered. [Data taken from the World Health Organisation]."

Please continue reading here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/10/11/what-causes-heart-disease-part-57/

All the best Jan

Dr M Kendrick
What causes heart disease part 58 – blood pressure
1st November 2018

A raised blood pressure, as a clinical sign, has always rather perturbed me. At medical school we were always taught – and this has not changed as far as I know – that an underlying cause for high blood pressure will not be found in ninety per cent of patients.

Ninety per cent… In truth, I think it is more than this. I have come across a patient with an absolute, clearly defined cause for their high blood pressure about five times, in total, and I must have seen ten thousand people with high blood pressure. I must admit I am guessing at both figures and may be exaggerating for dramatic effect.

Whatever the exact figures, it is very rare to find a clear, specific cause. The medical profession solved this problem by calling high blood pressure, with no identified cause, “essential hypertension”. The exact definition of essential hypertension is ‘raised blood pressure of no known cause.’ I must admit that essential hypertension certainly sounds more professional than announcing, ‘oh my God, your blood pressure is high, and we do not have the faintest idea why.’ But it means the same thing.
Doctors have never been good at admitting they haven’t a clue about something. Which is why we have a few other impressive sounding conditions that also mean – we haven’t a clue.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis – progressive damage of the lungs – and we don’t know why
Cryptogenic stroke – a stroke caused by something – but we don’t know what
Essential hypertension – high blood pressure – we haven’t a clue why its high.

Can you turn something into a disease, simply by giving it a fancy Latin title? It appears that you can. Does it help you to understand what you are looking at? No, it most certainly does not.

So, why does the blood pressure rise in some people, and not in others. It is an interesting question. You would think that, by now, someone would have an answer, but they don’t. Or at least no answer that explains anything much.

Read full article here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/11/01/what-causes-heart-disease-part-58-blood-pressure/

All the best Jan

Good to see him back, when the blog went quiet for a while I feared he had been got at.

There's a lot of idiopathic stupidity on Twitter, and in the Guardian.

... and some more reading !

Dr Kendrick has just put part 59 up on his blog.

What causes heart disease – part 59

Here's the link

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/11/27/what-causes-heart-disease-part-59/

All the best Jan

From Dr Kendrick today ...


Dr Malcolm Kendrick – deletion from Wikipedia

Read more here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/12/03/dr-malcolm-kendrick-deletion-from-wikipedia/

All the best Jan

Jan1 wrote:From Dr Kendrick today ...


Dr Malcolm Kendrick – deletion from Wikipedia

Read more here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/12/03/dr-malcolm-kendrick-deletion-from-wikipedia/

All the best Jan

Desperation tactics to discredit Dr Kendrick from an anonymous source, that one anonymous prat can get him removed from Wikipedia based on his views on the lipid hypothesis stinks.  

Malcolm Kendrick is a fringe figure who agues(sic) against the lipid hypothesis. He denies that blood cholesterol levels are responsible for heart disease and in opposition to the medical community advocates a high-fat high-cholesterol diet as healthy. Problem is there is a lack of reliable sources that discuss his ideas. His book The Great Cholesterol Con was not reviewed in any science journals. Kendrick is involved with the International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics, I suggest deleting his article and redirecting his name to that. Skeptic from Britain (talk) 20:29, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Yup just been reading that, and some of the Wikipedia stuff.

I find it generally a reliable source for things like music and engineering history but I've read before about the ongoing battles in the fields of medicine and other "controversial" subjects.

There used to be a saying

"The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it". No more . . .

He's gone!

And as if by magic the media are full of pro-statin rubbish. Must be a coincidence.

From Dr Kendrik's blog ...

What causes heart disease part 60 – prediction

2 January 2019

‘It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future.’ Old Danish proverb
The hallmark of a great scientific hypothesis is prediction. Einstein’s theory of special relativity predicted that gravitational fields could be demonstrated to bend light – and he was proven right during observations made during a total eclipse of the sun.

Unfortunately, things are rarely as black and white as that. Even if you understand almost all of the factors at play, it can be extremely difficult to predict certain events, particularly the timing. Earthquakes, hurricanes, which flu virus will be active next year? There are so many variables interacting with each other that things get very complex. When will San Francisco suffer the next major earthquake? According to the best predictions – about twenty years ago.

Chaos theory can also play its part. A very small change in one part of a system can trigger massive downstream effects. A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa, and two weeks later a hurricane devastates Florida.

So, what of predicting your future risk of cardiovascular disease? How good are the current models? Are they of any use at all?

Read more here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/01/02/what-causes-heart-disease-part-60-prediction/

All the best Jan

Yet more interesting reading from Dr Kendrick.

What causes heart disease part 61 – strokes

15th January 2019

In this never-ending story on heart disease, I have tended to use the terms “heart disease” and “cardiovascular disease” almost interchangeably. Well, everyone else does it, so why not me? However, in this blog I shall be splitting cardiovascular disease into its two main components, heart attacks and strokes, and concentrating mainly on strokes.

The first thing to say is that there are three main causes of strokes.
Atrial Fibrillation (ischaemic)
A burst blood vessel in the brain (haemorrhagic)
A blood clot (ischaemic)

[There are also cryptogenic strokes (no known cause), strokes due to a hole in the heart, strokes due to antiphospholipid syndrome, strokes due to sickle cell disease etc. etc.)

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a condition where the upper chambers of the heart (atria) do not contract and relax smoothly every second or so. Primarily because there is a disruption in the electrical conduction system, causing the atria to spasm and twitch in a highly irregular fashion.

When this happens, blood clots can form in the left atrium then break off and head up into the brain and get stuck. Causing a stroke. They can also travel elsewhere in the body causing a blockage to an artery in the kidneys, the leg, the arm and suchlike. If they form in the right atrium, they will end up stuck in the lungs.

These clots are usually quite small, about the size of a large grain of rice, but this is still big enough to do quite considerable damage. The treatment for AF is either to try and reverse the fibrillation or, if this does not work, to give anticoagulants such as warfarin to stop the clots forming.

A haemorrhagic stroke is when a blood vessel in the brain bursts. Blood is then forced into the brain and causes a lot of damage – leading to a stroke. Haemorrhagic strokes are usually quite severe, as you can imagine. The treatment is to NOT give an anti-coagulant of any sort. Haemorrhagic strokes are often/usually caused by a thinning of the artery wall, causing a ballooned area (aneurysm), which then bursts.

An interesting question, and I have seen different views on this is whether a small blood clot travels to the brain where it gets stuck, but does not completely block the artery, so it does not cause a stroke, but it creates an area of damage – which is then repaired – that leaves a weakness in the artery that balloons out – an aneurysm.

Anyway, the most common cause of a stroke is that large atherosclerotic plaques form in the main arteries that supply blood to the brain (carotid arteries). These plaques usually form around the base of the neck. A blood clot then forms on top of the plaque, then breaks off and travels to the brain, where it gets stuck – as with atrial fibrillation – causing a stroke. The effect is the same as with AF, but the underlying causing is completely different.

According to the American Stroke Association 87% of strokes are ischaemic.

Which means that the vast majority of strokes are caused by atherosclerotic plaques in the neck. Just as the vast majority of heart attacks are caused by atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary arteries. Therefore, you would expect that the risk factors for stroke would be exactly the same as the risk factors for heart attacks, as the underlying process is the same.

Well, many of the standard risk factors are the same. Smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and suchlike. However, a raised LDL most certainly is not. There is a research study called the Simon Broome registry, started in the UK, that tracks the health outcomes of people diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH).

It is a fascinating resource which, if you decide to interpret their data through a different prism, virtually rules out the raised LDL in familial hypercholesterolaemia as a cause of CVD. One of the earlier papers in the BMJ, on the findings of the Simon Broome registry, found that:

Please continue reading here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/01/15/what-causes-heart-disease-part-61-strokes/

All the best Jan

Dr Kendrick has certainly been busy writing because the next part of 'What causes heart disease' is now available to read ...

Yes it's part 62

See it here
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/01/19/what-causes-heart-disease-part-62/

All the best Jan

Have you been keeping up with Dr Kendricks posts on what causes heart disease?

Well he is now up to part 65

What causes heart disease part 65 – Lead again

if you'd like to read it here is the link
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/09/23/what-causes-heart-disease-part-65-lead-again/

All the best Jan

No sooner was Part 65 on Dr Kendricks blog!
There is now a part 66!

What causes heart disease part 66

"How does lead cause CVD?

Following my last blog, several people asked the question. How does lead cause CVD – or atherosclerotic plaques? What is the mechanism of action? It’s a good question, one that I think I have answered before, at least in part. However, I think there is real value in going over it again.
First, I want to highlight some of the more general thinking about causes of CVD, I believe this is important as well, in order to see how lead fits in, and where my interest in lead came from.
For many, many, years now I have been trying to create a unified hypothesis about cardiovascular disease. A journey I thought I would never finish. Mainly, I now realise, because I kept coming across ever more ‘factors’ that had a role in CVD. This meant that – although I couldn’t quite work out why at first – I was running into the impossible, and unsolvable, problem."

Please continue reading here

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/10/05/what-causes-heart-disease-part-66/

All the best Jan

You may have already seen this … but just in case you haven't, and would like to  

What causes heart disease - a summary

Please see here

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/10/09/what-causes-heart-disease-a-summary/

All the best Jan

And more from Dr Kendrick

What causes heart disease – part 67 – The Blood Brain Barrier

"10th November 2019
The Blood Brain Barrier

Here I am going backwards in time and space to try and explain, from a different angle, a fundamental problem with the LDL/cholesterol hypothesis. In doing so I hope to again make clear why I am certain the entire process of cardiovascular disease (CVD) requires a complete re-think.

In a medical school long, long ago, on a planet far, far, away, I was part of a small group teaching session on cardiology… Aberdeen 1980, actually. I have mentioned this event before, a critical moment in my life. The tutor was Dr Elspeth Smith, who was researching heart disease at the time. Research that, to my chagrin, I knew little about until several years later, when I began more detailed research into cardiovascular disease.

At one point in the tutorial, Dr Smith stated that LDL (low density lipoprotein) cannot get past, or through, the endothelium. At that time, I hadn’t much of a clue what LDL was, and very little idea about the endothelium. However, something about the intensity of her comment created an itch, one that I have spent very nearly forty years scratching.

I say this because, if LDL cannot get past the endothelium, then the widely accepted, and supposedly primary causal mechanism of heart disease, must be wrong!

Just to remind you that the central mechanism underpinning the ‘cholesterol hypothesis’ has always been that LDL leaks out of the blood past, or through, the endothelium, and into the arterial wall behind.

This then stimulates a whole series of downstream processes whereby you end up with thickenings in the artery wall narrowing the artery – known as atherosclerotic plaques. The higher the LDL level, the faster the leakage? I put a question mark there, because I don’t think I have ever seen this stated explicitly – I suppose it is implied as self-evident.

Clearly, however, if LDL cannot pass through the endothelium – the single layer of cells that lines all artery walls – then the ‘cholesterol hypothesis’ is a busted flush. Which is sort of interesting in a ‘hold the front page’ sort of fashion. ‘LDL hypothesis completely wrong – shock horror.’ Dr Elspeth Smith explains that LDL cannot get through the endothelium. Experts around the world, agree, and look for other explanations for heart disease.

This is a headline that I must have missed."

continue reading here

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2019/11/10/what-causes-heart-disease-part-67-the-blood-brain-barrier/

All the best Jan