Reddit mentions of The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It

>why do so many doctors stand behind these drugs, the money?

That's one big reason among several, yes. Maybe not money directly, but there are always the nice little gifts, the friendly sales rep with his helpful "research" to save them time chasing down and analysing debate between researchers, and the corporate-sponsored medical conferences in exotic countries etc (I personally know a doctor who loves going on these every year). There's also the little item that if your research funding comes from corporations and "non-profit" organisations with funding links to the corporate world, you are less likely to want to bite the hand that feeds you.

Re the logic, isn't it pretty obvious? You have a drug that is supposed to promote heart health which actually puts it at risk. I feel sorry for the trusting people who suffered or perhaps even died before it was realised that statin-induced Co-enzyme Q10 deficiency causes serious harm. And the problems of statins aren't just related to CoQ10. Statins suppress one of the precursors of CoQ10 and cholesterol, HMG-CoA reductase. That enzyme is a precursor about half a dozen steps prior to cholesterol - which means that about five other substances besides cholesterol are suppressed when a statin drug is present. Cholesterol of course is used to make other things, like the sex hormones estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. Like bile, which helps with the absorbtion of fat and the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Like the "stress hormone" cortisol. Cholesterol is also a precursor for the body's synthesis of Vitamin D (so lowering it not only retards absorbtion of Vitamin D through food, but also retards your skin generating Vitamin D when sunshine hits it). Vitamin D is needed for proper bone mineralisation, and is also believed to have an anti-cancer effect. As well as the liver, the brain manufactures cholesterol but Lipitor can cross the blood-brain barrier and stop production there too. As cholesterol comprises a significant portion of the brain and is necessary for proper mental function, it is no wonder that slowness, forgetfulness, and even transient global amnesia are known symptoms of statin use.

I am related to someone who is taking Lipitor right now. He is taking co-enzyme Q10 and still suffering muscular aches and pains, and cannot raise his arms above shoulder-level any more, the pain is so great if he tries. He also suffers from an overwhelming tiredness shortly after taking his fix, and becomes a little slow at following the thread of conversations. His faith in his personal doctor is absolute, and no matter how many books written by DOCTORS I place in front of him to read, his faith in Lipitor and his Medical Priest sustain him like some sort of cult, even though I see it wearing him down before my despairing eyes. Interestingly, the white-coated Priest has been presented with Dr Graveline's first book on Lipitor, and did not choose to contend with it at all. His response to his patient was that "the choice to stop or continue taking it is yours".

When you learn from members of the international medical community that high cholesterol has not been proven as the cause of heart disease and how the stated reason for using statins is flawed by politics, profit and junk science, and there is no medically useful reason to take these dangerous statin drugs at all, you tend to want to boil over in fury.

Some books for you to check out:

The Great Cholesterol Con, by Malcolm Kendrick MD (2007)

The Cholesterol Myths, by Uffe Ravnskov MD PhD (2000, 2002)

The Great Cholesterol Con, by Anthony Colpo (2006) - forward by Ravnskov & contains nearly 1500 citations to medical journals and research trial reports.

Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol, by Mary Enig PhD (2000) - a bit dry for the lay reader, plunges into lipid chemistry, but highly informative. Enig was among researchers who became concerned about trans fats way back in the 1970s.

The Heart Revolution: The Extraordinary Discovery That Finally Laid the Cholesterol Myth to Rest, by Kilmer Mccully MD & Martha Mccully (2000)

Lipitor: Thief of Memory, by Duane Graveline MD (2006)

Statin Drugs Side Effects and the Misguided War on Cholesterol, by Duane Graveline MD (2008)

Those books have plenty of academic and scientific citations for you to seek further.

Statin drugs are a joke.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Cholesterol-Con-Disease/dp/1844546101

Cholesterol Con?

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Cholesterol-Really-Causes-Disease/dp/1844546101

I might get downvoted for this, but please read Dr. Malcolm Kendrick: The Great Cholesterol Con

Read one of these two books, and it'll likely change how you feel about cholesterol.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Great-Cholesterol-Myth-Disease/dp/1592335217

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Great-Cholesterol-Con-Disease/dp/1844546101

If you're still concerned get a blood test done now, and then get another one done a few months into the diet. I'm willing to bet money that your blood-lipid panel will be the same, if not improved compared to what it was at the start of the diet. This is basically what happened to me.

So you're saying that since we know very little about what early Paleolithic man ate (~2.5 million years ago up until 10,000), and despite the fact that we know our brains grew and stomachs shrank specifically because of meat consumption, we should eat vegan.

And that (RE: #3) because our day-to-day lives look very little like (in a literal sense) a hunter-gatherers life, we ought not eat meat? We may not run around and hunt our food, but how many of us run around all day, to this job or that, working overtime, etc. If anything, I'd think it would make more sense to streamline your foods for maximum efficiency - i.e., eat the foods that are most nutritious, which certainly includes a hefty amount of vegetables, but also includes a significant (dietarily) amount of high-quality meat product whose bioavailability or healthy fats and complete proteins (nevermind micronutrient breakdown) is virtually unmatched. That would only make sense in this over-worked and un-rested era.

(By the way, Paleo is all about quality. Only grass-fed/pastured animals, preferably that includes a hefty dose of the nutrient dense organ meat, as well as a short-but-intense exercise plan that would very much mimic that of a hunter-gatherer.)

RE: #4 - if you seriously can find me one piece of information that does not show very clearly an exponential increase in grain consumption in the last 100 years (that goes right along with the prevalence of diseases of civilization), I'd love to see it. I really don't think it exists.

Just a few examples (that aren't even talking about Paleo):

• Dangerous Grains
  
  
• The Great Cholesterol Con
  
  
• Trick and Treat: How Healthy Eating is Making Us Ill
  
  
• Food and Western Disease: Health and nutrition from an evolutionary perspective
  
  
• Gluten and Autism
  
  
• MS and Diet
  
  
• RA and Diet
  
  
• If those aren't enough, happy reading. I hate to break it to you, but even non-paleo dr.'s and scientists from across a host of fields are all coming to the conclusion - based on biochemistry and specifically how our guts, intestines, etc. interact with them - that grains are a far bigger problem than quality meats.
  
  Yes, every one of these will talk about shit-quality meats, but also extensively about "high-quality, whole" grains. And before you use the word "pseudoscientific" again, I'd just like to say I'm not sure that you know what it means. These citations are from scientists. I haven't yet seen you cite one scientist. And before you quote the China Study - don't. It's bunk, been proven to be bunk, by people smarter and more thorough than Denise Minger's pretty solid piece on Campbell's skewing of the stats.
  
  Get your learn on.
  
  Personally, I don't give a shit if you eat meat or not. But you're conflating a moral issue (of yours) with a health issue (of ours). I'll agree with you that the vast majority of meat that gets eaten in this country is crap. Factory farms need to go. Grain-feeding animals needs to stop. So do food subsidies for corn and grain. But beyond your morals, there's absolutely nothing unhealthy about eating a grass-fed steak, or a cage-free, chicken that's been allowed to run around outside and do its chicken-y thing. So long as you tolerate those well (food allergy tests - another thing I'm not sure you're aware of that's very, very popular in the Paleo community, and many people come back allergic or intolerant of many animal products).
  
  Anyway, I'm done here. You still haven't specifically told me what's pseudoscientific. You've linked to a group with an agenda and wikipedia, but have made all sorts of claims that imply you have some very specific knowledge relating to some damaging aspects of consumption of high-quality meats in a balanced diet with high-quality fruits, veggies, etc. I can link you studies and papers by scientists and doctors all day. You haven't cited one.
  
  Moreover, you make the claim that because we don't know what foods we're evolved to thrive on we shouldn't eat Paleo - all the while claiming Veganism is better. On what grounds if you can't say what we've evolved to eat? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

I'm no medical expert either, I'm a computer programmer, but I'm enjoying it.

One thing to keep in mind is that while Taubes does pretty thoroughly debunk the conventional view of things, he would probably be the first to tell you that the carbohydrate/insulin hypothesis he advances isn't proven either. It may be that there's more to it than that, but it does seem to fit the evidence better.

Another one worth looking at: The Great Cholesterol Con. I just got it, but haven't started it yet. (Want to finish GCBC first.)

Exercise really does not help one lose weight.
And the Dr. cannot force her to take meds.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Cholesterol-Con-Disease/dp/1844546101

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Cholesterol-Myth-Disease/dp/1592335217/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y