Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Risk Factors for Heart Disease are Distorted by MRFIT

In 1986 in the Journal of the American Medical Association the MRFIT study established that a single measurement of cholesterol being higher than average correlated with a higher risk of Coronary Artery Disease. The massive study of 356,222 men aged 35-57 y.o. was looked at again with a 25-year follow-up, and the findings were essentially the same. If patients had a cholesterol below 200 and did not smoke or have diabetes or hypertension, their risk was 87% lower than the rest of the study participants. The text used unusual flowery language in describing the importance of their own study, but their results did not show that lowering cholesterol resulted in fewer deaths, it did not advocate the widespread use of statin drugs (which can have dangerous side effects), and it presented no data showing that a low fat diet is healthier than one with restricted carbohydrates, although both factors were mentioned, and they clearly favored low fat. The lead author, Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, did some good but also has done considerable damage in this country by contending that cholesterol is by far the major risk factor for CAD, along with others who have contended that we should lower it at all costs. CAD is still the number one cause of death 25 years later. Cholesterol is one risk factor among many, and we need to address them all to be successful.

See The Journal of the American Medical Association to see these two articles of historical interest.

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