On Sat, 18 Sep 1999, Ray Audette wrote:

> > And what do you say about Ray Audette
>
> I can assure you that I don't have a job!

Do you get tenure with that?

> I also don't pretend to be the last word on cholesterol and heart disease.

I never suspected you of it.  But I find it odd that if Loren
Cordain accepts the cholesterol-CHD connection he is suspected of
selling out to keep his job; that you announce the same
connection in your book passes without comment.

> People who eat an all meat and animal fat diet do seem to have very low
> cholesterol numbers.

You should learn to qualify your statements.  *Some* people
conform to this generalization.  It has by no means been shown
that all people do, nor is there anywhere near enough information
to warrant an assertion that some certain percentage of people
do.  As you know, it was not true for Stefansson and Andersen.  I
understand that you conjecture that coffee was responsible for
that, but it is still a conjecture.  Andersen's cholesterol went
down pretty fast after they stopped eating just meat and fat, and
we don't have any evidence that they stopped drinking coffee at
that time.

> These same people also eat a much better ratio of
> Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids as Professor Cordain points out in his work.

That's true, but if you're going to cite his work as
authoritative you should at least mention that it is his view
that a diet high in saturated fats is not healthy overall, and
that cholesterol *is* an important risk factor for heart disease.

> Other works of Loren's point to other ways to produce high cholesterol such
> as consuming peanut oil.  Other vegetable oils have also been implicated
> including hydrogenated vegetable oils and cafestrol (found in unfiltered
> coffee).

No one doubts that there are other ways to get high cholesterol,
although I am unaware of studies showing peanut oil to do so.  On
the contrary, what I have read suggests that peanut oil does
*not* raise serum cholesterol, but is nevertheless atherogenic in
laboratory animals.  Interestingly, there does not seem to be a
correlation between eating whole peanuts and CHD; the few studies
that are out there suggest the opposite effect.  This may be an
example of a case where isolating a fraction of a whole food
yields a substance with effects quite different from the effects
of the whole food itself.

Todd Moody
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