Dr. Jonny Bowden "The Great Cholesterol Myth"

This video presents the alleged fallacies regarding fats, cholesterol, weight loss and heart disease that continue to be perpetrated by our health authorities US government.

Key points are:-

The relationship between cholesterol and heart disease came from experiments on rabbits in the early 1900s in Russia. They fed the rabbits high cholesterol and they developed heart disease. However, what they didn't consider was rabbits are vegetarians and can't process animal foods, dogs may not have the same result. 23:34 in the video.

In the 1950s they started to observe more and more in US people suffering heart disease. A scientist called Ancel Keys then proposed the link between heart disease and high fat diets. He put forward data from 7 countries (USA, Canada, Australia, UK Italy and Japan) that showed increased fat intake the higher incidence of heart disease. 

One problem with Keys' findings was that was a data for 23 countries and he cherry picked the ones that showed the correlation increased fat intake increased heart disease. In countries like Norway, Sweden and Portugal eat as much as fat USA but have heart disease rates 40% that of USA. 25:04 in the video.

He points out that by eating saturated fat cholesterol levels go up. However, he argues that this is not causative of heart disease. He references a number of respected studies and leading scientist who have found increased saturated fat does not cause an increase in heart disease. They state that the nutrition advice promulgated in main stream is contrary to the scientific findings. In fact other studies have shown that increase carbohydrate consumption increases heart disease.

He quotes the Lyon Diet Heart Study which compared Mediterranean Diet to the Western Diet and the health outcomes of 605 middle aged men and women who had previously suffered heart attacks. There was significant reduction in deaths and heart problems with those who followed the Mediterranean Diet compared to the Western Diet. 

 extract from LDHS final report

The Mediterranean-style diet used in the Lyon Diet Heart Study included:

• More bread, more root vegetables and green vegetables, more fish.
• Less beef, lamb and pork (replaced with poultry).
• No day without fruit.
• Butter and cream were replaced with margarine high in alpha-linolenic acid.

The Mediterranean diet averaged 30 percent of calories from fat, 8 percent from saturated fat, 13 percent from monounsaturated fat, 5 percent from polyunsaturated fat and 203 mg/day of cholesterol. Compared to the control group, people in the experimental group consumed less Omega-6  and more oleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid and dietary fibre.

People in the control group (Western Style) consumed a diet with about 34 percent of calories from fat, 12 percent from saturated fat, 11 percent from monounsaturated fat, 6 percent polyunsaturated fat and 312 mg/day of cholesterol. This diet is comparable to what is typically consumed in the United States.

Comparison of daily nutrient between control "Western style" diet and experimental Mediterranean diet 

 extract from LDHS final report

 

 

Key differences in the diets appear to be ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 which was 18.27:1 for the Western diet and 4.29:1 for the Mediterranean diet in LDHS.

 

Another significant difference is that the amount of cholesterol consumed in Mediterranean diet was some 65% of that in the Western diet. However, blood cholesterol levels between the groups were no different. This would seem to concur with the belief that the body regulates cholesterol production depending on the amount consumed.  

 

Contrary to what Bowden states at 35:00, the Mediterranean Diet followed in the LDHS was lower in overall fat and red meat intake and so doesn't directly support his hypothesis that saturated fats are not causing heart problems. One big take away seems to be to cut back on red meat.

A key finding the Lyon Diet Heart Study was that all cholesterol level measures did not change for either group. However, despite this death rates and heart attacks were still substantially reduced for those on the Mediterranean diet, indicating cholesterol levels are not relevant.  

He states that the only reliable Cholesterol test is called the "Particle Test" and measures LDL A (harmless) and LDL B (killers).  He states that saturated fats only increase LDL A which is harmless. 42:00.

He states the real cause of heart disease is inflammation of the arteries caused by Omega-6 from (vegetable oils and eating grain fed beef) and sugar. Other sources state that inflammation is caused by LDL B cholesterol.  

Our diets contain too much Omega-6 and not enough Omega-3, the ratio in America is 16 to 1. The ratio should be 1 to 1.