Although I'm a heart attack survivor who now takes statin drugs every day (routinedly prescribed in our Heart Institute for all cardiac patients), I've become increasingly interested in this question.

There appears to be a growing body of evidence throwing some doubt on the assumption that high LDL (bad) cholesterol numbers and low HDL (good) numbers lead to cardiovascular disease.

In France, ischaemic heart disease rates are only ONE QUARTER of those in the UK or North America. The major risk factors are no more favourable in France, and the French show similar levels of serum total cholesterol and high density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations. Reports like this are cause for revisiting our assumptions about cholesterol.

It's also important to keep in mind that much of the clinical trials and published research linking cholesterol and heart disease have been funded by the very drug companies who manufacture statin drugs for cholesterol management. Statin drugs are the darlings of the drug world (any drug that an otherwise healthy person willingly takes every day for the rest of his/her life is like winning the lottery for Big Pharma). Lipitor, for example, is the biggest selling drug in the world, produced by the biggest drug company in the world, Pfizer.

My cardiologist points to high-cholesterol food as an example of how science has changed its collective mind over the decades in its attitude towards cholesterol. During the 70s when early cholesterol research results were coming in, the standard clinical advice was that cholesterol - ALL cholesterol - is bad, including any in the food we eat. NO EGGS! Then, as emerging research revealed new results, he said cardiologists began allowing three eggs per week. Now, he says, his patients can eat an eg every day. So cholesterol in our food apparently isn't as deadly as once thought.

One wonders if the same change might happen one day around those who are pushing statins now to control those cholesterol numbers.

HI Carolyn,

You make excellent points! Especially this:

"My cardiologist points to high-cholesterol food as an example of how science has changed its collective mind over the decades in its attitude towards cholesterol. During the 70s when early cholesterol research results were coming in, the standard clinical advice was that cholesterol - ALL cholesterol - is bad, including any in the food we eat. NO EGGS! Then, as emerging research revealed new results, he said cardiologists began allowing three eggs per week. Now, he says, his patients can eat an eg every day. So cholesterol in our food apparently isn't as deadly as once thought.

"One wonders if the same change might happen one day around those who are pushing statins now to control those cholesterol numbers.

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It is a sad fact of modern medicine that we have many specialists who know a lot about one thing but don't often make connections to other things. In other words, many cardiologists simply do not understand biochemistry!

Read those books, and you will know more about magnesium's effect on cardiovascuular issues than 90% of cardiovascular specialists.

Gina