On Fri, Jan 19, 2007 at 09:55:58AM -0500, Philip [[log in to unmask]] wrote (in part):
| Ray Audette stated on p. 186 of NeanderThin (1999 paperback) that
| "Obviously, excessive blood cholesterol is undesirable...." Yet he then
| stated on p. 188 that "Dr. De Bakey found no definite connection between
| atherosclerotic disease and high blood cholesterol...." This seems to be a
| contradiction. Can anyone explain this?
| 

I haven't read Audette but there is no conflict in the above statements as I
see it.

Cholesterol is a component of many desireable hormones in the body. It also
serves an anti-inflammatory agent. Thusly, the higher the amount of
inflammation in the body (such as that which CRP levels measure) the
likelihood of of the body to increase cholesterol to battle that
inflammation is there. This 'kill the messenger' approach is what created
the kneejerk approach in the anticholesterol campaign of the past many
decades.

It is the fact that cholesterol can be elevated due to other systemic
deterioration that cholesterol itself became the 'baddie'.

High cholesterol is undesireable in the context that it is our first
discovered approximation of a CRP level. High cholesterol is not the cause
of atherosclerotic disease. But when it is elevated, something is going on.

No conflict in Audette's statement there.

A side trip: Statins work (when they do) by somehow actually addressing some
components of inflammation. What is happening is not completely understood,
but as we understand it, drugs suppress and enhance different regulator
components of the system when they are in effect.

Since the 'good' effect of statins are sometimes measured by how much
cholesterol drops, cholesterol in the mind of the media and the public is
still the scapegoat. 

If CRP levels instead of cholesterol levels in rabbits had been the first
scapegoat found, our CRP levels likely would have been the things targetted
by statins.

By metaphor, statins are a tool, much like using an axe to remove a splinter
that could probably be removed by other means. The tool is primitive, it is
not a precise tool (not a bullseye on the real problem), nor is it accurate
(doesn't really eliminate inflammation overall), but it is all that some
people care to use since it is as simple as popping a pill. And it makes
money and has a lot of financial backing.
-- 
Janice 
Semavi Anatolians <in California> http://cobankopegi.com
  http://www.cobankopegi.com/blog/ (pictures, fun, a little dis'n'dat)
My mother is a fish.
- William Faulkner