Kendrick is at it again -- another shot at the immortal cholesterol theory

http://www.redflagsweekly.com/kendrick/2002_dec23.html


MALCOLM KENDRICK, MD
 December 23, 2002
 WHY THE CHOLESTEROL-HEART DISEASE THEORY IS WRONG
 Women, Heart Disease And Sex Hormones
 (Part Five) - (begin the series<A HREF="http://www.redflagsweekly.com/kendrick/2002_nov28.html"> here</A>)
 By Malcolm Kendrick MbChB, MRCGP (email -<A HREF="mailto:[log in to unmask]"> [log in to unmask]</A> )
 Women don’t’ suffer as much CHD as men - of the same age - despite having 
slightly higher LDL levels. I’m talking here about women under the age of 
about seventy. After that the statistics become horribly inaccurate and, in 
the end, we all have to die of something.
 For years and years it was suggested that women were protected against LDL 
by their sex hormones. In fact the ‘sex hormones protect women against CHD’ 
hypothesis became an accepted fact, a given.
 Like most people, I accepted it too, in "a kind of, I can’t be bothered 
checking out every fact that I hear," sort of a way. Anyway, superficially, 
it made sense. Women have similar risk factors (usually higher LDL levels), 
they suffer about one third the rate of CHD, and they have hormones. Ergo, it 
is the hormones that protect women. Nice and simple: To quote H.L. Mencken on 
simple solutions.
 ‘For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, 
understandable, and wrong.’


 However, as with almost every other known ‘fact’ about CHD, if you do 
choose to look for the evidence, it doesn’t exist. For years I assumed that 
someone had carried out a massive pivotal trial proving that female sex 
hormones really were protective. But when I went to look for it, I found that 
the cupboard was bare. This fact, quoted endlessly, with utter conviction, is 
based on absolutely nothing at all.
 It is true that oestrogen and progesterone (as we call them in the UK), have 
some beneficial impact on lipids and blood coagulability, but in fact, if you 
look hard enough you can find effects on almost everything in the 
cardiovascular system. Any of these effects could, theoretically, have some 
protective benefit. And lo it was decided that these ’test-tube’ benefits 
really were important.
 Perhaps the most important of these effects was an increase in High Density 
Lipoproteins (HDLs), otherwise known as ‘Good Cholesterol.’ I love the idea 
of good and bad cholesterol; it’s like something out of Star Wars. ‘This 
cholesterol has gone over to the dark side…"