Saturday, May 21, 2011

Health Guidelines: Your Food is Trying to Kill You

Steven Malanga on the morass of government nutritional advice. An excerpt:

The scientific controversy grew more intense. In 1992, an authoritative review of 19 cholesterol studies worldwide found that, while men with cholesterol levels above 240 were disproportionately likely to suffer heart attacks, men with cholesterol levels below 160 were disproportionately likely to die from all causes, including lung cancer, respiratory disease, and digestive disease—an outcome that suggested a relationship between low cholesterol levels and disease, something that scientists had never considered. The study also showed no difference in mortality rates for men with cholesterol levels between 160 and 240, even though the guidelines advised keeping levels below 200. Perhaps most surprisingly, the study also found that cholesterol levels made no difference at all in death rates among women. There was little doubt that some public-health researchers wished such research would go away. “Some people don’t want to talk about it,” said Michael Criqui, an epidemiologist at the University of California at San Diego and an associate editor of Circulation, which published the review. “They think it is going to impede public-health measures.”

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