Last weekend I was invited to speak at the Freedom Law School’s 2009 Health and Freedom Conference, which was an interesting mix of nutrition and politics, the latter portion largely devoted to opposition to the income tax, opposition to the Federal Reserve, and alternative theories about what happened on September 11, 2001. I don’t agree …
Heart Disease
Wherefore Art Thy Protection, O HDL?
Hey everyone! It’s great to be back. I got way behind with things after slipping and falling and dislocating my shoulder at the end of January, but I hope to be back to blogging regularly now. Many of you may remember the drug torcetrapib, aimed at increasing HDL-cholesterol. It failed miserably, and killed a lot …
The Total-to-HDL Cholesterol Ratio — What Does It Mean?
Someone recently forwarded to me two references that a high-level New Zealand professor had used to support recommendations against saturated fat and coconut oil. The references did not support the conclusion at all, but they did provide some interesting insight about the importance of the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio and its dietary implications. Both of the …
JUPITER Trial Emphasizes the Role of Oxidative Degeneration in Atherosclerosis
by Chris Masterjohn The most recent widely publicized trial using the cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, the JUPITER trial, has been enthusiastically hailed as a justification for the expansion of these expensive drugs from people with high cholesterol levels to those who have low-grade inflammation but normal cholesterol. The study hardly justifies this enthusiasm. It does, however, …
The Incredible, Edible Egg Yolk
Ten years ago, someone who cared about their health would likely eat egg whites and throw the yolks away because they were afraid their cholesterol content would cause heart disease. Now that the consensus against cholesterol is crumbling, we are no longer so fearful of egg yolks. But did you know that egg yolks are …