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The Great Cholesterol Con | 
 enlarge | Author: Dr Malcolm Kendrick
Publisher: John Blake Publishing Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.62
You Save: £4.37 (55%)
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Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 6169
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 238
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1844546101
Dewey Decimal Number: 613
EAN: 9781844546107
ASIN: 1844546101
Publication Date: July 7, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Erm... July 3, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
...hang on a minute. Given that objective peer-reviewed research is the only kind worth paying attention to, if I've interpreted the Lancet data correctly we've got the following scenario: Take two groups of 67 people with cholesterol levels above a particular point. Give one group statins for five years, but don't give any to the other group. During that period, no-one in the first group will experience a 'cardiovascular event', but one person in the second group will. Now divide 67 into the total number of individuals with elevated cholesterol levels and, presumably, that's the number of people who could avoid a heart attack/stroke/angina attack during that period if they DID take statins. It's a large number and I'd be very happy to be one of them, thank you very much.
Worth reading, but doesn't really provide any answers March 22, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
At first glance this book seems very well researched and written, and essential reading for anyone taking statins or concerned about cholesterol levels.
Dr Kendrick criticises research into the saturated fat - cholesterol - heart disease link, on the basis that most of the researchers involved in this field had set out to prove this link rather than studying it objectively. The author then seems to apply similarly biased thinking to try to prove his own theory that stress is the primary cause of heart disease.
Dr Kendrick is right to point out that a number of countries with high saturated fat consumption and low incidence of heart disease have been conveniently ignored by those trying to prove the diet-heart hypothesis. The author makes no attempt however to find other explanations for this. A lot of research is being carried out into homocysteine which is a non-essential amino acid that has been found to be very irritating to the outer lining of the arterial wall. Homocysteine is produced when there is insufficient folic acid, B12 and B6 in the body to convert methionine (found abundantly in animal meats) into cysteine, which can be excreted by the kidneys. Interestingly, populations with high saturated fat intake and low incidence of CHD all seem to have high consumption of these B vitamins in their diets, as well as Omega 3 fatty acids which are known to be cardio protective. Has this been conveniently ignored by Dr Kendrick because is doesn't fit his stress-heart hypothesis?
I work in the field of cardiac rehabilitation and it is an area where a multi-disciplinary approach is required. Diet, activity levels, smoking, pharmacology and stress are all major factors and trying to suggest that one factor is more important than the others is, in my opinion, completely wrong.
For a book written predominantly about stress and heart disease, the practical advice on reducing / dealing with stress is a disappointing page and a half postscript.
The book is very good at showing some of the misinformation that does exist about cholesterol and heart disease and explaining some of the problems with statins and some of the research that has been carried out by drug companies. If however, you are looking for a book to help improve the health of your heart, then this book on it's own is not comprehensive enough.
 Just What The Doctor Ordered January 10, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Like one of your other reviewers, I was tilted towards Dr Kendrick's point of view before reading the book, but I am glad that he makes what seems to be a very solid case. As he says in the later part of the book, it is not that cholesterol is not relevant to the subject of CHD, it is just that high total cholesterol is not a particularly good predictor of it, and the most likely thing is that it might be a marker of something else going wrong in the body. (Abnormally low cholesterol, on the other hand, can be a predictor of other diseases, one reason why statins are such bad news).
The mainstream medical profession has latched on to it because it is something they can measure (although not always very accurately, seemingly), and it can also be used as a stick to beat patients with. As one of your other reviewers pointed out, they keep moving the goalposts so that more and more people become "sick", even though they present no symptoms and feel perfectly well.
And it's pretty obvious why the drug companies just love cholesterol.
Like another of your reviewers, a friend of a friend of mine was put on a low fat, low-red-meat diet, after a routine medical, in order to try to reduce his cholesterol. In spite of this "healthy" diet, his cholesterol did not meet the current "goalposts", and so he was bunged on to statins (so, no pressure there then). In spite of the fact that he was perfectly well at the time of the original medical. So a probably healthy person has been made into a patient and may be on medication for the rest of his life.
I too like Dr Kendrick's comic turn of phrase, and there is a lot more of this in some of his articles on the Cholesterol Sceptics website, and much more besides.
As Mr Moldqeir suggests, scientific and medical orthodoxy always resists new or minority ideas, but it is only by people thinking the unthinkable that progress is made. Remember Galileo.
To Mr Tither: fat may contain more calories per gramme than carbohydrate or protein, be more energy-dense in othe words, but this was one reason why it was prized so highly by "primitive" people, i.e. the people who evolved to become us. Unfortunately for us, we learned to prize junk calories more highly, which is probably why we have so much obesity in our midst, or in our midriffs.
Regards,
M.
very readable and provocative. January 9, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Dr Kendrick provides a very well evidenced work, explaining his perspective on the prevalent paradigm in relation to fats. i.e.The saturated fat-bad, poly/monounsaturated fat-good theme that pervades the majority of mainstream medical and scientific thinking and preaching.
His work is well referenced, inviting the reader to form their own opinions.
I personally enjoyed his humour, and the tone of his writing has been created by decades of frustration caused by the fruit of the poison tree thinking that has pervaded this area of science. His annoyance is understandable, as from his perspective, a lot of the diet doctrine we read about is about as useful as discussing what material is best for the Emporer's New Suit, or what chocolate to build a fireguard from.
The complexity of human illness is so massively multi factorial that we eventually just have to settle for what feels right. I was biased in his direction to start with, hence my selection of the book, but I did get the feeling that he was right, and had the guts to explain how he felt, and why.
Time will tell. I am glad I read it.
Amusing destruction of Statins January 5, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Having done my own research into cholesterol and statins, I thoroughly concur with this book. I have believed for a number of years that big pharma have a vested interest and are big enough and powerful enough to skew research in their favour. After all business is busines! I've also come across more than a few people who have become weak, insomniac, fatigued and with muscle cramps. One who lady kept trying to get her cholesterol down to below 2, ended up in hospital totally distraught. The doctor explained her folly. Anyone who doubts the validity of this book, just do your own research - if you are able (it's avery complex area). You will find dirty tricks and "massaged" results all over the place.
At a nutritional therapist I cannot agree with Dr. Kendricks stance on diet. He is totally wrong to think it does not matter - but that is his view. Really he is only talking about the saturated fat/cholesterol link. The other foods in your diet do make a big difference - for example high sodium/low potassium diets may increase BP in some people. There can be no doubt that high BP makes CHD worse.
I thught his point on side effects was excellent. Large studies do not monitor comparatively minor side effects like fatigue, increased diarrhoea, constipation etc., so if the treatment induces them in trials, it will during treatment. It seems that statins can do this.
On the point about going to a doctor to be healed. Doctors are not trained in healing, whatever you might think: they are trained in treatment. There is a big difference: it means they "manage" the problem. Healing comes from within the body and that means correcting the root cause (if it can be found).
I found the book highly oringinal, amusing and readable, making a complex subject accessible to the lay-person.
As an aside by eating a healthy diet including meat, cream, butter, full fat cheese & milk my LDL cholesterol (so called bad) dropped from 4 to 3 and my HDL (so called good) increased from 1 to 1.2. So how is it sat fat increases cholesterol?
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