My Post to Fat-Head movie blog

Gary Springer says:
April 8, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Hi Laurie,

Thank you! It’s always a pleasure to read posts by educators who are looking beyond their formal education for understanding of health and nutrition, a RARE pleasure.

But, I think it is quite obvious the medical world will not embrace any science that shows LDL has a positive influence upon health.

The “cholesterol is bad” myth has now been running for sixty years. Not only was there no science to support the myth from the beginning, but also, with the passing years, more and more cholesterol has been classified as “good cholesterol”. Even though more and more cholesterol has been determined to be beneficial, the “safe” blood cholesterol levels keep dropping. Right, read that again. It’s completely backward.

Science, knowledge and logic obviously have nothing to do with the “cholesterol is bad” myth. Because the lipid theory of heart disease was created for financial and economic reasons, no matter how high the scientific studies pile up that discredit the lipid theory of heart disease, it will persist for financial reasons. (The statin drug market is only a small part of the incentive to keep these myths alive. Statins are a spin-off business of saturated fat fear)

Can you imagine the difficult spot the World Health Organization would be in if they had to tell people that grain was substandard food? They’re having big enough problems feeding the world with large amounts of cheaply and efficiently produced grain even though people think these are nutritious foods. Can you imagine what would happen for the demand of meat, dairy and eggs if cholesterol was vindicated? Can you imagine the WHO explaining that some nations simply cannot afford to eat anything but efficiently produced grain, even though meat is more healthful and more conducive for the proper development of the brain?

No, the “choleterol is bad” myth and its equally dangerous sister the “saturated fat is bad” myth are both here to stay, no matter how much scientific evidence you pile up to discredit these myths. It’s all about money and economics.

All you have to do is look at the timing of the fabrication of these myths and the history of the man who fabricated them, Ancel Keys, an economist turned nutritionist who worked with the US defence department in designing K rations, a nutritionally bankrupt but economical food supply for soldiers. Immediately after WWII, when the majority of the population would for the first time be able to eat the diet of kings, Ancel Keys then “theorized” and was awarded huge grants to convince us that the diet of kings would give us heart disease. At the same time, all funding for opposing theories was cut off. Now, why was there a pressing need for energy conservation and food production efficiency immediately after WWII? The answer is in my book and you should go Dah?? when you consider it.

Can you see how many trillions of dollars in energy costs that have been saved over the decades by cutting the demand for foods that need to be refrigerated?(meat, dairy and eggs).

Nutrition and healthfulness are irrelevent factors in the decision to promote saturated fat and cholesterol fear! Completely irrelivent! An economist and a CPA are more properly trained than scientists to understand why the science is ignored. Piles and piles of additional scientific studies that show the same old thing over and over, the piling up of more studies that show cholesterol and saturated fat are healthful substances will not overturn conventional medicine’s condemnation of these substances.

You can bank on it!

Gary Springer,
Author of They're Making You Fat and Sick
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0984354409/sr=1-1/qid=1262637905/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1262637905&sr=1-1&seller=