Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Flaws of Conventional Wisdom


As you know by now, I'm not a conventional wisdom kind of guy.  I think conventional wisdom is vastly flawed.  In many cases it's bought and paid for.  In some, gross negligence.  In others, arrogance and ignorance.

With that said, it comes as no surprise to me that the molecule that you see to the left makes about $13,000,000,000/year.  Yeah, that's right -- 13 BILLION!  And the statin market?  Try this on for size: $26 Billion +.  With negligible benefits, even by conventional wisdom standards, tons of side effects and a big price tag it has quite possibly added to cardiovascular morbidity.  We've been sold a bill of goods.  All of us: doctors, consumers, media, mom, dad, grandma...

This brings me to my point.  I'm not going to talk about all the flaws of conventional wisdom (that would take too long and I don't even know them all).  But this one pisses me off (especially because of reasons that hit 'close to home').  I think it stems from a number of things: ignorance, arrogance, greed, money-generated flawed 'wisdom'.  I don't fault all involved.  I think there are many, many well-meaning people who research, develop, and sell medications  On the other hand, I think there are ill intentioned people that spend hundreds of millions on the development of a molecule, see the flaws and dangers and move forward anyway.  I think this one is a mixed bag.
 
Most believe in conventional wisdom when it come to a diet rich in fat and cholesterol -- they believe that fat promotes cardiovascular disease and paves the road to an early death; I do not.  I believe a diet rich in processed, chemical-laden food and processed carbohydrates that obliterates your pancreas year and year with masses and continual amounts of insulin is what leads to obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.  Mix processed fats, high insulin levels and processed carbohydrates and you have a recipe for an unhealthy, disease-ridden and likely earlier-than-should-have-been death.  So what?

The flawed conventional wisdom that fat and cholesterol kill you is why the pictured above molecule has been a blockbuster seller for more than a decade.  Yet, now research is showing (and it doesn't coincide with CW -- uh oh --) that statins actually promote and worsen Alzheimer's.  My father died from Alzheimer's in 2006 after (what we now know) a 10 year battle.  He started showing sign of Alzheimer's at age 51!  He was gone at 61.  I believe aspartame played a part in the development of his disease; CW does not agree.  Google aspartame -- make your own judgment on its safety.  I think other factors played a role as well that I won't discuss that here.  But at about the mid-way point of his battle (2002), he started taking Lipitor for his 'high' cholesterol.  It seems now that not only did it not help him, but it likely worsened the progression and further development of Alzheimer's.

"Alzheimer's is a devastating disease whose incidence is clearly on the rise in America. Fortunately, a significant number of research dollars are currently being spent to try to understand what causes Alzheimer's. ApoE-4, a particular allele of the apolipoprotein apoE, is a known risk factor. Since apoE plays a critical role in the transport of cholesterol and fats to the brain, it can be hypothesized that insufficient fat and cholesterol in the brain play a critical role in the disease process. In a remarkable recent study, it was found that Alzheimer's patients have only 1/6 of the concentration of free fatty acids in the cerebrospinal fluid compared to individuals without Alzheimer's. In parallel, it is becoming very clear that cholesterol is pervasive in the brain, and that it plays a critical role both in nerve transport in the synapse and in maintaining the health of the myelin sheath coating nerve fibers. An extremely high-fat (ketogenic) diet has been found to improve cognitive ability in Alzheimer's patients. These and other observations described below lead me to conclude that both a low-fat diet and statin drug treatment increase susceptibility to Alzheimer's."

I'll not belabor my point any longer or delve into the specifics of fat and cholesterol transport and the importance of it to our body, specifically our brain; the study below explains it all in fantastic detail.  But I'll leave you with this.  Make up your own mind.  Don't let one person, a company, a doctor, or any one entity make your decision for you.  Use your mind and make your own decisions about your health.  Look around you.  You are surrounded by an epidemic of obesity and diabetes and it's not because of fat and cholesterol.  And by the way, medicines don't seem to be helping all that much.


Change your life.  Move more, eat less, educate yourself.

Until next time...

No comments:

Post a Comment