Low-Cholesterol Cordain Strikes Again, Wins Stink Award
In a recent article for Early to Rise, popular science writer Loren Cordain, Ph.D (false Paleolithic Diet promoter) once again asserts that, “In the 1950s, when scientists were first unraveling the link between heart disease and diet, they found that saturated fat raised blood cholesterol levels and increased the risk for coronary heart disease. Dietary sources of saturated fat, such as fatty domestic meat, were deemed unhealthful, and rightly so.”
Oh great, Cordain Strikes Again…More stink about cholesterol being a poison and confusion about fats…
Once you get past Cordain’s mumbo-jumbo concerning mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats you can see that he is yet another promoter of the diet-heart hypothesis. This hypothesis dictates that saturated fat and cholesterol are the culprit in today’s heart disease pandemic. WOW! Nobody has ever heard that one before…I’m sure thousands of readers are smiling knowing that they have these pearls of wisdom to share at the dinner table tonight.
It is well established that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, LDL, HDL or otherwise. To miss this in the medical literature you’d have to go pretty far back in time – maybe even all the way back to the paleolithic era. At least a hundred years of scientific research has shown that saturated fat and cholesterol are not the cause of heart disease. Unfortunately, Cordain has not returned from that age-old era and continues to hold tight to a hypothesis that does not stand up to the rigors of scientific method – over half of the people who die from heart attack have “low cholesterol.” And research shows that cholesterol is protective rather than detrimental! Further, there is no relationship between cholesterol levels and degree of atherosclerosis….
The real problem rests in INSULIN PROMOTING TRANS FATS and SUGAR. They are among the biggest (not the only) causes of heart disease and premature heart attacks today. It was sad to see little mention of this life-saving fact in Cordain’s ETR article.
Seriously, with 150lbs of sugar being ravenously consumed annually along with gobs of trans fat, do people really think that naturally-occurring saturated fats (as Cordain asserts) are moving us faster to our expiration date? Surely not – unless you are a professor looking for grant money and publicity to support your research and book sales…Yet another lesson he hasn’t learned: truth sells better than hype in the long run.
Emre, 
Lorraine, 
alfredoe 7:40 pm on July 21, 2010
Another good irreverent article.
Thanks
Janine 3:52 pm on July 22, 2010
Totally agree!
Kim 10:43 am on July 26, 2010
Thanks for telling it like it is.
Suz Stapler 10:59 am on July 26, 2010
Actually the way the Weston A. Price Foundation teaches people to eat (full fat and raw dairy, grass fed and wild proteins and eggs, organic fruits and veg, virgin coconut oil, fermented foods and leave the sugar, fast and processed foods, excitotoxina like MSG and HFCS to the rats out there) is the only nutrition program people should learn. Even people who are carb oriented can eat this way.
Hugh Cole 6:01 pm on July 26, 2010
I read That article in ETR and pondered it for a few moments before hitting the delete key. Thanks Shane for putting the straight stuff out there. As a chemist and a reformed type II diabetic, I can say your information is a big help to folks fighting this battle.
Lose Fat and Build Muscle 3:09 pm on August 4, 2010
When you say that insulin is the culprit what exactly is the MOA here?
Is it due to some kind of inflammatory cascade involved in the presence of insulin? Or is it some other process that is initiated in the presence of high levels of insulin?
I have read up on a lot of this information and it frustrates me to no end that people are hung up on the cholesterol hypothesis. Really frustrating. But trying to help people understand this is incredibly even more frustrating.
thanks in advance for any responses.
Lorraine 7:09 am on September 16, 2010
The med establishment keeps warning me about my cholesterol nbrs I ignore them and go on my merry way
Emre 2:58 am on November 1, 2010
Hi Shane,
Too much of everything is dangerous right?
At which level should we be alarmed when Total Cholesterol increases?
I mean, is there any incidence indicating TC is more than it should?
What might be the risk when it is too much? (If any)
Regards
Emre