Saturday, November 29, 2014

sad reflections

Dr. Perlmutter's latest blog post discusses a study in the journal Neurology, in which MRIs showing deleterious brain changes are analyzed in relation to "various markers of blood fats and risk."  The verdict:  lower LDL is not a good thing.  If you haven't read it already, I encourage you to.

I have the perfect anecdote about why this is news we should have had a long time ago -- before low-fat dietary advice fucked up the health of America (and probably a lot of the rest of the world).  It's a comparatively recent tragedy involving my mother's dearest friend.

Mother was the executive-secretary for the head of the pharmacology department of KUMC for decades.  She particularly got along with a most remarkable doctor there, Stata Norton, and after they had both retired, they continued and deepened their friendship.  I knew, liked, and had an immense amount of respect for Stata! 

If there's a fault to be found in the thinking of extremely brilliant professionals, it's probably that they believe their peers are as brilliant -- and honest -- as they are.  Somewhere along the line, Dr. Norton heard and gave credence to the bullshit about low-fat and low-sodium and health -- she put herself and her chubby husband (Dr. David Ringle, from the pathology department of the same institution) on low-fat diets.  I mean LOWWWWW fat.  Mother used to say that Stata had been a good cook, and looked forward to her Christmas cake, until she ruined it by removing the butter.

Dr. Ringle (I never knew him as well as I did Stata, so never felt comfortable about referring to him as Dave) started losing his wits.  At first, Mother used to attribute it to the geek factor (not that she used that term) -- not having first-rate conversational skills, but a decidedly odd sense of humor.  But then he started forgetting things more and more; it was obviously dementia.  I believe he had a stroke at some point too, but my memory is less clear on that score.  At last, it looked like his mind was totally gone, and he was going to have to go into an institution.

He was in the hospital, and the dog-sitter arrived one morning to find Stata dead on the sofa from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind these two able and respected scientists met premature ends because of the FALLACIOUS INFORMATION from ego- and profit-motivated sources.  When I rage against those FUCKING LIARS, there's definitely a personal aspect to my fury.

20 comments:

  1. I'm going to a funeral on Tuesday for a friend of my sister's who died at age 58 after suffering for years with liver disease and diabetes. Bonnie was a simple woman, married to a farmer in northern alberta without access to the internet. The medical establishment provided the vehicle to her misery, despair and untimely death. Sure we can blame her for not doing her research but even if she did would she be any different than your well-educated friends? Which way would her research take her?

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    1. your point is well made! SO many people trust "authorities" -- the question is always WHICH are deserving of our belief! It's only because CW had let me down so badly that I went looking for better sources of information -- I did NOT believe that I was just "doing it wrong," my inborn hubris caused me to believe that it was the information (not me) that was wrong!

      I'm sorry for your and your sister's loss! Heartbreaking to lose people so young to (probable) bad care.

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  2. My next-door neighbor was put on a very low fat diet because she had high cholesterol. She died of the flu a few years later in her mid-60s. Studies have shown that vitamin D is useful for avoiding the flu--and you don't absorb fat-soluble vitamins without dietary fat.

    Her husband committed suicide a few years later--his lungs were so damaged by the same bout of flu that he had to be on oxygen. A friend of his said to me that he was on some medication that gave him psychological side effects.

    This all reminds me of a John Briffa post long ago about how deaths went down in Israel when the doctors there went on strike.

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    1. appalling! Not only is vitamin D essential to keeping well, as you said; saturated fats are part of the coating which protects our lungs....

      Yes, it's happened in other places as well as Israel, I understand! Every time people are obliged to use less "care" there are fewer non-emergency deaths.

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    1. and i'm sure it happens over and over and OVER.... :-(

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  4. So, so glad the message is getting out about cholesterol (my small ion mobility results will arrive any day now in the mail...). At least my doc is understanding about my high total cholesterol with high HDL and low triglycerides being OKAY. Blog post about the deets soon. I should be spending time with the fam bam, but so, so tempting to go out to the mail and rip open the VAP panel.... sigh... ;)

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    1. As Armande said, "Don't worry so much about 'supposed to'." ;-)

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  5. All that claims that any amount of carbohydrates will be healthy regardless of the type IF a fat portion is low enough, and the success of a rice diet is the proof of it.
    Some people even add statines to their "healthy" diet in order to be absolutely on the safe side.

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    1. and we're seeing the destruction among our families and friends. When I get in a dark enough mood, the suspicion sneaks into my mind that rushing older people into early graves is DESIRED by the powers that be....

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    2. You experience made you enthusiastic to try to alert others that we can't totally rely on pills and the standard medical advice. I am happy to be able to rise the awareness in several people I know about the debilitating effects of statines. Many people my age have old parents. As a reward I keep receiving reports about the parents getting less fragile and more alive, speech troubles disappearing, memory getting better.

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  6. Hi Tess

    "When I rage against those FUCKING LIARS, there's definitely a personal aspect to my fury."

    Some diabetes forums are full of the above, very often the mods. They hold good numbers on a high carb diet and a bag of meds, so they tell people. Yes and Lions make great pets for your kids.

    Kind regards Eddie

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    1. :-) I HAVE to believe in karma -- it's the only thing that keeps me sane ... or at least as sane as I AM!

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  7. I believe my father died of this same crap! My mother still maintains her low fat fish only diet...she still eats sugar and drinks sweet wine. Oh well, I have given up on her. I'm hoping to save my sisters if I can. :(

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    1. i wish you the very best of luck with your sisters! ...too bad your mother won't listen to reason. :-( it's appalling to think of how much suffering and death have been caused by Keys' ego and McGovern's arrogance.

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  8. Damn, that's shitty.

    Thanks for the link, and therefore to the Schilling paper. Damn hard to read for an amateur PhD wannabe, but interesting nonetheless.

    Interesting that the PhDs say that the association between high LDL and CVD is "strong" and "undisputed'.

    I often wonder why they think it is necessary for a human to have to decide between heart disease and dementia.




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    1. if they can convince us that our lifestyles can't save us from disease, that means we need them and their medicines! :-P

      the ones who say there's convincing evidence connecting LDL to heart disease probably haven't read about them THEMSELVES, they're just quoting what others have said. it comes back to doctors trusting other doctors....

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  9. Add my fury to the pot.

    My mother had a brilliant, sharp mind. She developed polymyalgia rhuematica and they treated her with huge doses of steroids with very little monitoring, so she developed diabetes. She complained to her doctor for MONTHS that she was very thirsty all the time and they ignored her until she finally got a new doctor who immediately admitted her to the hospital with a blood glucose of over 700! So then the dietitian swooped in and told her to cut the fat. She was served a breakfast in the hospital consisting of cereal (Rice Krispies,, I think) with non-dairy creamer, orange juice, and whole wheat toast with margarine. Ever afterwards, she bought non-dairy creamer by the carton and used it in place of milk, and had plenty of juice, bread and crackers, pasta, etc. all doused with transfatty margarine. It was all "OK, because that's what they gave me in the hospital". And then the statins in ever increasing doses.

    She had both multi-infarct and Alzheimer's dementia. Her last 9 months were a horror show--screaming at the top of her lungs for no apparent reason every waking moment. She denied pain or discomfort and she denied screaming, but she did, to the point of damage to her throat and vocal chords. A nightmare brought on first by genes (my grandmother had AD, too), then intensified by unbridled steroids and statins, topped with the "healthy" low fat diet. A perfect storm of stupidity.

    There's no telling if I will beat the odds with a low carb, high in natural fat diet, avoiding statins and other modern poisons. But at least, every day, I feel like I'm doing something positive for myself instead of depending on the "expert advice" out there.

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    1. how awful -- i'm so sorry to hear it! :-( what a nightmare that must have been for you....

      i'm hoping we'll all beat the odds! before i got into this LCHF stuff, one of the people i used to read told that when he was in med-school, they were told they'd probably never see a case of Alzheimers, it was so rare ... so SOMETHING very recent is to blame for it -- inescapable logic! all those "rare" diseases that are epidemic these days are probably diet-driven. a lot has changed in the last century, but "normal" kinds of eating, i believe, have changed the most.

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    2. Probably, it is the worst horror story I ever heard about AD. I am sorry, Jan, it happened with your mom. Not the deserving end of life! The only consolation from it could be the learning from such horrible experience. I hope everyone in your family has more responsible attitude toward own health because of what happened to your mom, and it is a good legacy.

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