"Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com" wrote:
>
> >>Or perhaps cholesterol is secondary to the real cause.
>
> I can understand people with coronary artery disease and doctors
> wanting to
> "Believe" controlling cholesterol is the key. It is very common for
> people
> in general to want to believe that they can "control" things. It is
> very
> difficult for people and doctors to admit that they do not understand
> the
> disease process and there may be NOTHING they can do and that they do
> not
> have control - at least with the present understanding. <<
>
> COMMENT:
>
> Look, damnit. You can give a rabbit or a monkey terrible
> atherosclerosis, which they ordinarily do not get, by feeding them
> NOTHING more than added choesterol to their control diet (on which they
> do not get atherosclerosis, either). This was discovered in rabbits
> almost a century ago. Fed cholesterol is the ONLY variable in these
> experiments. And it can cause honest-to-god full-on
> can't-tell-the-difference-from-the-human-kind of atheroslcerosis. All
> by itself, witih nothing else. Period.
>
> Now, do you GET it? That doesn't mean cholesterol is the only variable
> in the human process or even the main one. But we know it CAN be causal
> *all by itself* of this disease, in animals. That means that it's
> extremely unlikely not to be partly causal in humans (whether it
> originates from the diet or the liver isn't important once its in the
> blood), given the close correlation between disease and blood
> cholesterol levels, the known pathogenesis of the disease which
> involves macrophages filling up with cholesterol from the blood, and
> finally the (duh) obvious facts that atheromatous plaques are filled
> with cholesterol goo like the stuff inside of a creampuff.
>
> The animal evidence that cholesterol is partly a causal factor in
> atherosclerosis is actually better than the animal experimental
> evidence that smoking is partly causal in lung cancer. If you really to
> be perverse, why not attack the smoking lung cancer theory first?
>
> SBH

Aside for your language, would concur with your comments.

At His service,

Andrew

--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Board-Certified Cardiologist

**
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