The Great Cholesterol Con by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick
Bio:
Dr Malcolm Kendrick (MbChB MRCGP) MD qualified in Aberdeen Scotland. He has worked
in family practice for almost twenty years, and learned that treating patients is not like
treating textbooks. He has specialized in heart disease and set up the on-line educational
website for the European Society of Cardiology.
He is a peer-reviewer for the British Medical Journal, and has written articles on a wide
range of subjects from Multiple Sclerosis to Stress and Heart Disease and the health
benefits of sunshine. He is a member of the International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics
(thincs) as he does not believe that a high cholesterol level causes heart disease.
The Great Cholesterol Con sticks its hand in the air and yells 'The Cholesterol Hypothesis
is not wearing any clothes.' Then runs like mad, whilst the great and the good, the
powerful, the pharmaceutical companies the opinion leaders in cardiology give chase. For
they all have much to lose.
Dr Kendrick takes the reader through the history of the cholesterol hypothesis, or
diet-heart hypothesis and explains how it came to be. He then takes it apart piece by
piece, showing that cholesterol and/or saturated fat does not (indeed cannot) raise
cholesterol levels, and that raised cholesterol levels cannot, and do not, cause heart
disease.
He then moves on to explain how statins work - not by lowering cholesterol levels - before
looking at the real data on statins. He makes it clear that statistical manipulation has
massively overestimated their benefits.
The reality is that, for the vast majority of people they provide no benefits whatsoever. In a
significant minority they cause horribly unpleasant and often debilitating side-effects. But
with a fifty billion dollar industry resting on them, they are aggressively marketed and
pushed relentlessly.
Dr Kendrick contends that the bottom line with statins is this: If you are a man who is
already suffering from heart disease, statins can increase your life expectancy. Not by
much, but they do work. For everyone else, statins do not increase life expectancy by one,
single, day. So there is absolutely no point in taking them, at all.
The main message of this book. Stop worrying about your cholesterol level. A high level is
much healthier than a low level, and if you have a high cholesterol level you will live longer.