Today, because the idea has been repeated so many times that cholesterol can cause heart disease, most people assume it to be true without actually looking at the facts. In fact nothing has become more synonymous with "heart disease" in America than the cholesterol myth. In fact it has been repeated so often that a high cholesterol ratio (high LDL, low HDL) is a risk factor for heart disease. Many Americans now believe that this is a fact, cast in stone.

So if we were to believe that there is a correlation between high cholesterol and heart disease. Then by using the data provided from major studies which support this idea we would have to believe that:-

1. That cholesterol causes heart disease in men but not in women. 2. It causes heart disease in Americans but not Canadians. Yet it protects Russians against heart disease. 3. Can cause heart disease to someone if they are between the age of 30 and 47, but stops causing heart disease once a person turns 48.

So as you can see these conclusions are obviously wrong and the public has been misled to believe that blood cholesterol levels are both a strong and consistent predictor that you will suffer from heart disease. But the cholesterol myth shows that data from studies carried out which are cited to support the claims above, tell an entirely different story.

As people are not in the habit of reading research first hand, they will often find they have a misunderstanding about the scientific method that is used. Normally a typical "scientific method" will be presented in the following format as when you were at school.

The researchers make observations and then try to explain these observations with a hypothesis. By using logical reasoning, the researchers are deriving their predictions from the hypothesis. Often these predictions are tested experimentally and if the results verify the predictions they then support the researcher's hypothesis. But if they do not, then the hypothesis is either abandoned or modified. For verification, another set of researchers will then repeat the experiments originally carried out in order to verify the findings of the first set of researchers.

So as you can see there are plenty of reasons as to why the cholesterol myth has arisen in today's society.

Ldl Cholesterol | Medical Disclaimer |