Worried about high Cholesterol? Taking cholesterol lowering medications? Maybe you shouldn't be!

Sadly, the American and worldwide communities have been misled for nearly half a century on the supposed dangers of high cholesterol. As it turns out, there is little to worry about. Consuming a diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol is not associated with an increased risk of heart disease. Many studies prove this, but they have not been well publicized, and in some cases, suppressed. The anti-cholesterol campaign is not based on good methodical research, and has numerous fatal flaws, many of which are demonstrated here.

The American public, as well as most of the industrial world, has been advised since the mid 1950's to minimize dietary intake of saturated fats and cholesterol, due to the supposed increased risk of heart disease.

Since that time, tens of millions of Americans have been placed on dull, drab diets in the hopes of minimizing their blood cholesterol level. And for those individuals whose cholesterol level was deemed too high, they were placed on powerful medications. Obviously, the goal was to minimize, and possibly even remove the risk of heart disease from the American community.

Is this strategy working? Hardly. The rates of heart disease and heart attacks continue to rise in America, in spite of the fact that Americans are eating less saturated fat and cholesterol. The current number of deaths in the United States attributed to heart disease is well over 500,000 per year, and that number is growing steadily per year.

What is the reason for this increase? It is becoming apparent through emerging research that, contrary to scientific dietary wisdom, saturated fats and cholesterol play almost no role at all in causing heart disease. The exact cause of heart disease is yet to be discovered, but clearly, saturated fats and cholesterol have almost no effect on this disease.

Ironically, heart disease was not a major killer of Americans when a more traditional diet was consumed. For example, at the turn of the century, Americans ate a diet high in saturated fats and cholesterol, which included meats of all varieties, whole milk, butter, cream, and eggs. And heart disease was almost non-existent, in spite of this diet!

Sadly, the American public, as well as the rest of the industrial world, has been misinformed, misled, and even decieved about this issue. There are a variety of reasons for this, not the least of which is the jealously guarded financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies who manufacture and sell cholesterol lowering medications.

It may come as a suprise to most that this "high cholesterol- heart disease" theory has never been definitively proven, and in fact, has been disproven hundreds of times over the last 30 years. There is also virtually no proof that taking cholesterol lowering drugs can decrease the risk of having a heart attack.

Unfortunately, this type of information is rarely shared with the American community. As previously mentioned, there are many complex reasons for this, including the powerful influence of the food proccessing industry that earns billions in profits selling "low fat" and "cholesterol-free" products to world wide consumers.

So, what is total cost of this misinformation really costing Americans? 500,000 American lives are lost each year to heart disease, and that number increases every year. Americans are switching from saturated fat to unsaturated fat, such as that found in most commercial vegetable cooking oils. These types of oils have been implicated in various diseases such as cancers, heart disease, sterility, premature aging, and other diseases. Americans are eating less red meat, which provides a rich source of nutrients that protect the heart and nervous system, including vitamins B-12 and B-6.

Americans are taking powerful medications to lower their cholesterol, when there is virtually no benefit in doing so. Many of these medications have not been proven to decrease the risk of having a heart attack, but there have been disturbing findings linking them to stroke and cancer.

I have found that there are many myths when it comes to this issue. Specifically, I have uncovered ten myths about cholesterol and its supposed relationship to heart disease. Most of the American and worldwide communities are not aware of these myths, but they desperately need to be informed, because it truly is a matter of life and death!

Allow me to close with a quote from George Mann:

The diet-heart idea (the notion that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. This idea has been repeatedly shown to be wrong, and yet, for complicated reasons of pride, profit and prejudice, the hypothesis continues to be exploited by scientists, fund-raising enterprises, food companies and even governmental agencies. The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century."

-George Mann, MD

Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee

and co-director of the Framingham Heart Study (one of the largest medical studies

on the effects of diet on heart disease)