Greater Chance of Death With…Lower LDL?

Tuesday, August 14, 2007 21:53

An interesting “paradox” to ponder:

The lower your LDL cholesterol, the GREATER your risk of all-cause mortality (that means you’ll die sooner of something, just not heart disease). This study says it’s double.

Of course, you don’t need to just look at that study. You can look at the Conference on Low Blood Cholesterol and Mortality, the Why Eve is Not Adam study, or countless others. Why, even the data of the hallowed Framingham Study shows a 14% death rate increase per 1mg/dL per year drop in cholesterol levels (!).

And yet, we’re continually being urged to “lower our cholesterol counts”, particularly LDL. The ubiquity of Lipitor ads and commercials (the #1 selling drug in the US and worldwide) would lead a sensible person to conclude that high cholesterol is an epidemic that needs to be stemmed now, otherwise we’ll all be dropping dead in the streets, clutching at our chests.

And “paradoxically,” the science doesn’t seem to agree. Interesting indeed.

Caveat emptor - become an informed consumer!

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