The Cholesterol Scam

Ernest Curtis, MD, exposes the Big Government-Big Pharma cholesterol scam.

A delusion is a false belief held with conviction despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. LRC readers are certainly familiar with many delusions popularly held in the field of economics and the fact that these myths persist because they serve the interests of those who benefit from big government and ever-expanding government interventions.

The same is true in the field of medical science where one of the most widely accepted myths involves cholesterol and its purported role in causing heart attacks.

There is a closely related set of theories known as the Cholesterol Theory, the Lipid Hypothesis, and the Diet-Heart Theory. They postulate that cholesterol is the chief culprit in the causation of atherosclerosis (also called arteriosclerosis or "hardening of the arteries"). It is the complications of atherosclerosis that lead to disability and premature death from heart attacks and strokes. These theories also maintain that a diet too high in fats and cholesterol is often responsible for the premature development of atherosclerosis.

The truth is that these theories are scientifically bankrupt and cholesterol has nothing to do with the development of atherosclerosis or its subsequent complications. Read more

What if Bad Fat Is Actually Good for You?

For decades, Americans have been told that saturated fat clogs arteries and causes heart disease. But there's just one problem: No one's ever proved it.

... The first scientific indictment of saturated fat came in 1953. That's the year a physiologist named Ancel Keys, Ph.D., published a highly influential paper titled "Atherosclerosis, a Problem in Newer Public Health." Keys wrote that while the total death rate in the United States was declining, the number of deaths due to heart disease was steadily climbing. And to explain why, he presented a comparison of fat intake and heart disease mortality in six countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Italy, and Japan.

The Americans ate the most fat and had the greatest number of deaths from heart disease; the Japanese ate the least fat and had the fewest deaths from heart disease. The other countries fell neatly in between. The higher the fat intake, according to national diet surveys, the higher the rate of heart disease. And vice versa. Keys called this correlation a "remarkable relationship" and began to publicly hypothesize that consumption of fat- causes heart disease. This became known as the diet-heart hypothesis.

At the time, plenty of scientists were skeptical of Keys's assertions. One such critic was Jacob Yerushalmy, Ph.D., founder of the biostatistics graduate program at the University of California at Berkeley. In a 1957 paper, Yerushalmy pointed out that while data from the six countries Keys examined seemed to support the diet-heart hypothesis, statistics were actually available for 22 countries. And when all 22 were analyzed, the apparent link between fat consumption and heart disease disappeared. For example, the death rate from heart disease in Finland was 24 times that of Mexico, even though fat-consumption rates in the two nations were similar. Read more

Smart Cardio For Strength, Mass, And Fat Loss

Cardio training should be part of everyone's fitness regimen, but that doesn't mean you need to put in hours on the treadmill, stationary bike, or on the roads. There are better ways to train.

If you're a typical guy who loves to lift big weights, but considers anything over 3 reps to be "endurance" training, you might not be interested in this article. However, if you can bench press a Buick but get winded when you bend down to tie your shoes, maybe I have an audience.

Look, we all do what we LIKE to do, but only the most successful among us find a way to also do what we NEED to do. If you think you're in the latter category, listen up. I've got a quiver full of fun, challenging, cardio workouts that help you lose fat without losing strength or muscle.

Why You Need Cardio

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that cardio will turn you into a wispy, estrogen-soaked shadow of your former self- too many guys use this mindset as an excuse to avoid what they know they should be doing. In fact, the benefits of smart cardio training are too numerous to ignore. They include: Read more

Unclog Your Arteries

Though it may be discouraging that it's not cheese nachos that unclogs your arteries, it's encouraging that something as simple as eating broccoli may prevent heart attacks and strokes.

This probably still won't encourage children to eat it, but the many healthy properties of broccoli include preventing a heart attack or stroke, say researchers.

A chemical found in the vegetable boosts the body's defence system to keep arteries unclogged.

Cauliflower, sprouts and cabbage can also keep the blood flowing freely.

They all contain sulforaphane, along with rocket, kale and pak choi, but broccoli contains the highest levels. Read more:

The Angioplasty Scam

Angioplasty is a huge business, but new heart research shows that exercise helps heart disease and increases survival rates more than angioplasty does.

At the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation meeting recently held in Barcelona, Spain, new heart research was presented that shows one treatment in particular can provide remarkable help for patients with certain forms of serious heart disease. It's not a new drug or surgical procedure. Instead, it's a natural therapy -- plain old-fashioned regular exercise. Read more

Be Good to Your Heart: Eat Peanut Butter

Peanut butter "wards off heart disease," scientists say.

Peanut butter sandwiches could be the secret to beating heart disease, says a study.

Snacking on peanuts or peanut butter at least five days a week can nearly halve the risk of a heart attack.

The nuts are thought to lower bad cholesterol, help reduce inflammation in the body and boost the health of blood vessels around the heart. Read more

Brief, Intense Exercise Can Benefit the Heart

In my post Don't Just Run: Sprint!, I explained that sprinting has cardiovascular benefits, just as traditional aerobic exercise does. Another scientific study backs up that claim.

Short bursts of high intensity sprints--known to benefit muscle and improve exercise performance--can improve the function and structure of blood vessels, in particular arteries that deliver blood to our muscles and heart, according to new research from McMaster University.

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The findings support the idea that people can exercise using brief, high-intensity forms of exercise and reap the same benefits to cardiovascular health that can be derived from traditional, long-duration and moderately intense exercise. Read more