Red Flags - Cholesterol

The Power Of Analogy

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 04:00:00 -0500

Here is an analogy from the Savannah Morning News sent by a reader of my columns.

“Photos taken inside clogged city sewer pipes look nearly identical to medical photos of the blood vessels of patients who have spent a lifetime gorging on fried chicken, sausage, and bacon. "It’s like your arteries," said John Parker, environmental compliance inspector with the city’s Water and Sewer Department. "Grease builds up in there. It’s gory." And just like in the body, clogs can form little by little, the accumulation of lots of neighbors each sending a little grease down the drain.”

The New Scientific Ducking Stool

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 04:00:00 -0500

I shall probably be told that I am wrong, but I understand that the ducking stool was used to determine whether or not someone (usually a female someone) was a witch. The defendants were placed in the stool and lowered onto the surface of a pond. If they sank, they drowned, but were pronounced innocent. If they floated, they were witches; so they were then drowned anyway.

Other ways of determining witchery included grasping a red-hot poker. If it burned you, you were innocent; if it didn’t burn you, you were a witch. To be frank, once the powers that be had decided you were a witch, you were going to be found guilty — then killed. Or found innocent — but killed in the process. Take your pick.

Justice Saves Lives

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 04:00:00 -0400

There are few things that enrage us quite so much as a sense of injustice. There is nothing, for example, so anguished as the embittered cry of a five-year-old, “That’s not fair.” My usual reply to such a statement is that when you emerge from the womb, there isn’t a banner at the end of the bed stating, “Don’t worry, life will be fair.” Quite the opposite, in fact. So get used to it — and learn to play the game.

A Marketing Tale

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 04:00:00 -0400

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, wise medicine men decreed that cholesterol should be lowered to prevent heart disease. So the alchemists retreated to their dark laboratories, and developed magic potions such as fibrates and cholestyramine. And yeah verily, cholesterol was lowered, but the people taking these potions tended to die in higher numbers than those not taking the potions. So it was decreed that these potions should be swept under the carpet whilst no-one was looking.

How I Fell Down The Rabbit Hole

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 04:00:00 -0400

It worries me sometimes that I seem to be so completely out of step with my medical colleagues. They all lower blood pressure with relentless intensity, using complex guidelines set out by ‘experts.’ They advise patients to treat the sun as a dangerous white hot ball of radioactivity, creating melanomas faster than you can say factor twenty five. They purse their lips in concern at a blood cholesterol level that would have been considered normal ten years ago.

Cholesterol Lowering: If Low Is Good Is Lower Best?

Thu, 05 May 2005 13:19:48 -0400

By Dr. Peter Battershill and Alan Cassels

"Cholesterol drug best in large doses" proclaims a recent front-page headline. The text goes on to drive home the message that a recent cholesterol-lowering study has found "the strongest evidence yet that driving cholesterol down to very low levels offers additional protection from heart attacks and strokes."

Thank God He Didn’t Die Of Heart Disease Doctor

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 04:00:00 -0500

There are those of us, poor misguided fools, who believe that the main point of taking drugs is to prevent an early death. We are clearly wrong. The important thing is that you must not die of heart disease. For dying of heart disease is clearly much worse than dying of something else.

I don’t know, for myself, I think a major unexpected heart attack is not a bad way to go. A sudden sharp crushing pain, then it all goes dark, then – well who knows actually. Not that pleasant, but this is a better way to go, surely, than a slow agonising death from cancer. Or maybe not, maybe we should all have a chance to prepare for death, get used to the idea….. discuss.

Groundhog Day – In Reverse

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 04:00:00 -0500

Imagine waking up and having no recollection of anything that happened the day before. All memory, wiped, gone. You find a letter written by yourself that you can’t remember writing. You go out to buy a present only to find, when you get home, that you had already bought it. Your next-door neighbour asks for his wheelbarrow back, the one he lent you yesterday, you look at him blankly and say you haven’t got it.

Taking Drugs Is Good For You – Even If They Don’t Work

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 04:00:00 -0500

Every so often a story emerges that is just so exquisite that I have to rub my eyes and slap my cheeks to make sure I am awake, and I haven’t just dreamed it. One such story just emerged from the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans.

Basically, what researchers have found is that if you take your drugs every day, rather than missing them from time to time, you will halve your chances of dying (A bit of a meaningless statistic, as we are all going to die. I think what they meant to say is that you will halve your chances of dying during some defined time period).

Cholesterol And The French Paradox, The Swiss Paradox, The Russian Paradox, The Lithuanian Paradox... Etc...

Thu, 16 Sep 2004 04:00:00 -0400

I was going to write about something else, but I couldn’t resist bringing the latest results from the MONICA study to your attention (MONItor trends in CArdiovascular disease). This study has been going on for ages now. It was set up by the WHO – not the rock band - to look at heart disease rates and risk factors in twenty six countries across the world.

Statins: Pushing The Boundaries Of Far-Out Behavior

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 04:00:00 -0400

I was reading recently that the Intelligence community has come up with a phrase ‘groupthink’ to explain how groups of people can do really stupid or unpleasant things, whereas an individual would never go so far. When we are part of a group it seems that we can push the boundaries of far-out behaviour much, much, further.

I don’t like the word groupthink, it is functional and ugly. But it certainly is true. I have recently become fascinated by the conformity of many…most? people’s thinking, and I have been trying to work out why this happens. So I was open to the idea of groupthink before it came along.

On Discovering A Highly Controversial Drug Company Document Revealing A Very Different Perspective On The Development Of Heart Disease

Sun, 27 Jun 2004 04:00:00 -0400

One Contrary To The Same Company’s Aggressive Promotion Of Its Drugs To Treat High Blood Pressure And Lower Cholesterol

They say you should never explain a joke, because then it just isn’t funny any more. I quite agree, but something made me laugh over the weekend, and there is no way that I can get anyone to understand why without explaining it.

I shall attempt to set the scene.

We Are Sleep-Walking Into What Could Become A Major Medical Disaster Because Statin Drugs Will Soon Be Sold Over-The-Counter

Thu, 17 Jun 2004 04:00:00 -0400

Holoprosencephaly (defective septum separating lateral cerebral ventricles, with cerebral dysfunction), atrial septal defect, aortic hypoplasia, death at one month of age.
Aqueductal stenosis with hydrocephalus, concurrent limb deficiency
Cerivothoracic-to-lumbar neural-tube defect, myelocele, duplication of spinal cord, cerbellar hernation with hydrocephalus; apparent agenesis of palate
Spina bifida, right-arm abnormality
Left leg: femur 16% shorter than right side; foot: aplasia of metatarsals and phalanges 3,4 and 5; additional VACTERL (vertebral, anal, cardiac, tracheal, esophageal, renal and limb defects): left renal dysplasia, reversed laterality of aorta, disorganized lumbosacral vertebra, single umbilical artery; additional findings: clitoral hypertrophy, vaginal and uterine agenesis.

It always amazes me that some things seem to strike terror into the hearts of mankind whilst other, much more dangerous things, are accepted with a shrug of the shoulders. As my son has taken to saying ‘Yeh, whatever.’

A New Medical Riddle For The 21st Century

Fri, 11 Jun 2004 04:00:00 -0400

Or How Cholesterol Doublethink Will – And Should – Drive You Crazy

Question: ‘How can something be a risk factor for a disease, when it isn’t even there?’ This is my new medical riddle for the 21st Century.

Or, try this question instead. What is a raised cholesterol level? You might think there is an answer to this question – but there is not.

Tackling The Experts – Catch 22

Tue, 30 Mar 2004 04:00:00 -0500

Catch 22: ‘A problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem.’

I was contacted by a journalist recently about a piece that I had written for Redflagsdaily. He was thinking of writing an article about ‘cholesterol’ and had picked up on my views, views that seemed to run contrary to everything else he was reading in the area.