I’m really glad my few attempts at keto and carnivore were short lived as they just didn’t agree with my stomach.
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Chinese paper (and not a great journal?) but FYI: Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Reductions of not Less Than 60 mg/dL Prevent Hemorrhagic Stroke in Hypertensive Populations: A Meta-analysis 2025
We included seven randomized controlled trials and 9 prospective cohort studies involving 304,763 participants with 2125 (0.70%) HS events. The non-linear trend suggested that LDL-C levels of approximately 80 mg/dL among hypertensive patients and 115 mg/dL among non-hypertensive patients had the lowest risk of HS. Meanwhile, continually lowering LDL-C levels under the optimal (80 mg/dL for hypertensive patients and 115 mg/dL for non- hypertensive patients) LDL-C level would increase the risk of HS in the hypertensive population (RR = 1.84, 95% CI: 1.36–2.50) but not in the non-hypertensive population (RR = 1.15, 95% CI: 0.97–1.36).
(They mixed RCTs and longitudinal studies)
However MR studies differ: LDL-c Lowering, Ischemic Stroke, and Small Vessel Disease Brain Imaging Biomarkers: A Mendelian Randomization Study 2024
In genome-wide Mendelian randomization analyses, lower genetically predicted LDL-c was significantly associated with a reduced risk of any stroke, ischemic stroke, and large artery stroke, supporting previous findings.
In drug-target Mendelian randomization analysis, genetically proxied reduced LDL-c through NPC1L1 inhibition was associated with lower odds of perivascular space (odds ratio per 1-mg/dL decrease, 0.79 [95% CI, 0.67–0.93]) and with lower odds of SVS (odds ratio, 0.29 [95% CI, 0.10–0.85]).
NPC1L1 inhibition = ezetimibe
The findings revealed negative correlations between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and cerebral hemorrhage and large artery stroke. HDL-C, apolipoprotein A1 (Apo A1), TG in very small VLDL, and TG in IDL were found to be negatively correlated with any ischemic stroke. apolipoprotein B (Apo B), triglycerides (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholestrol (LDL-C), L.VLDL-TG, TG in medium VLDL, and TG in small VLDL exhibited positive correlations with large artery stroke. TG in very large HDL and TG in IDL were positively correlated with cardioembolic stroke. No significant causal relationship was observed between circulating lipids, with the exception of HDL-C and cerebral hemorrhage. No causal relationship was identified between any circulating lipids and small vessel stroke. Furthermore, the causal relationships were only found between residual lipids and ischemic stroke.
So, lower apoB is still better?
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Thanks to cholesterol and BP lowering therapies. Because of the Framingham Heart study. Without it we wouldn’t know high BP and cholesterol causes CVD.
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So maybe some mitigations could be used for viral infections with low LDL-C, at the same time enjoy lower all-cause death, CHD, and fewer bacterial infections?
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That’s super interesting, and in line with the theories I have heard also. To my knowledge, humans are the only species where we will build arterial plaque at population-level average, or “normal”, ApoB levels. So there is/was probably some sort of evolutionary reason for this, and obviously nature didn’t factor in us getting heart attacks in our 50s once we’ve already had children.
And fwiw, this is academically interesting but doesn’t change my approach of maximal ApoB lowering. Any of the naysayers who will almost certainly point out the viral infection risk also need to reconcile with the massive reduction in IHD and all-cause death. You don’t get more convincing than that.
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Gee, isn’t it one of the alleged benefits of rapamycin, better immunity against viral infections? Unless of course rapamycin does this by raising your LDL levels, as it’s prone to do according to some data. If so, that’s useless. Need some other mechanism to mitigate that. Vaccinations to the rescue, at least for the ones we’ve developed.
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I think evolutionary theories quickly veer into psuedoscience, at least if it’s the evolutionary psychology apparent junk science. It’s hard to confirm any of those theories. You’d had to sequence ancient humans and compare changes over time and what those changes do I’d guess.
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Yes, for sure. Again, I’m not saying this in any way to diminish the importance of LDL-C lowering. Obviously the benefits are absolutely massive. However, I do find it academically fascinating that humans are a species where our “normal” levels of LDL-C are enough to cause disease. We don’t know about ancient humans, but we can look at our closest living relatives in other species, and none of them seem to have the same propensity for building arterial plaque by default.
There’s a similar theory with Lp(a) also, where it supposedly plays some sort of role in blood coagulation and the response to acute injury. That’s either total accident, or it might have been advantageous at some point in the past. But the result is that we have humans where there is huge variation in circulating levels between individuals. Mine is like 80mg/dl (and all my uncles died in their 50-60s), but my wife has about 5mg/dl.
Again, when the drugs become available, I’ll gladly smash my Lp(a) into the ground, and I’m not worried about reducing my acute response to injury whatsoever. Plenty of other tools for that, if it becomes an issue.
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Atherosclerosis and plaques are a common finding in African Elephants. However, CV mortality is much less common. We dont know whether they die prematurely because kf accidents, parasites, poaching or dental issues!
It’ss perplexing that despite a vegetarian diet, they would develop plaques.
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Middle aged men had heart attacks in the 1950s because nearly all of them smoked; many started because cigarettes were included in MRIs during WWII. The participants in the Framingham study were followed for years and the head of the study reported that “the more cholesterol they ate, the longer they lived and the healthier they were.” Adding natural saturated fat is the best thing you can do for your heart health: it is sugar and vegetable oils that raise triglycerides and clog arteries. I take mct oil (fully saturated) coconut oil every day and my heart scan shows that I have ZERO plaque in my heart and arteries. The cardiologist told me my heart attack or stroke risk was therefore Zero.
Don’t you know that smoking cigarettes is actually healthy? It increases testosterone! I know this old guy who always smoked and still lived to his mid-90s. Don’t let those evil scientist Demonrats (hehe get it?) say otherwise!
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I have not read all the Framingham study papers, but I wanted to check your comment in ChatGPT so I put in this prompt:
What does the Framingham study conclude with regard to cholesterol and heart disease risk? Does it support this comment: Framingham study were followed for years and the head of the study reported that “the more cholesterol they ate, the longer they lived and the healthier they were.”
ChatGPT provided this response:
The Framingham Heart Study, one of the most influential and long-running cardiovascular studies in medical history, does not support the claim that “the more cholesterol they ate, the longer they lived and the healthier they were.”
Here’s a clear summary of what the Framingham study actually concluded regarding cholesterol and heart disease:
Key Findings of the Framingham Heart Study on Cholesterol:
Higher blood cholesterol is associated with higher risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).
- The study found a strong correlation between serum total cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease.
- For example, individuals with higher cholesterol levels had a significantly increased risk of heart attacks.
Dietary cholesterol was not a primary focus.
- The study primarily looked at blood cholesterol levels, not directly at dietary cholesterol intake. The link between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol was considered indirect and subject to individual variation.
Increased cholesterol over time predicted greater risk.
- A rise in cholesterol levels over time was predictive of increased cardiovascular risk, not decreased.
The Misquote or Misinterpretation
The quote attributed to the Framingham study—“the more cholesterol they ate, the longer they lived and the healthier they were”—has been widely circulated in some alternative health circles, but it is misleading and out of context.
It likely stems from a specific subgroup analysis in a 1970s Framingham report where no significant association was found between dietary cholesterol and heart disease in that cohort. One statement often taken out of context is:
“There is no discernible relationship between reported diet intake and serum cholesterol level in the Framingham Study population.”
However:
- This does not imply that eating more cholesterol improves health.
- It simply indicates that in this population, dietary cholesterol intake was not strongly correlated with serum cholesterol, which is consistent with later findings that saturated fat, trans fat, and overall diet quality are more influential.
Conclusion
The Framingham Heart Study strongly supports the link between high blood cholesterol (especially LDL cholesterol) and increased heart disease risk.
It does not support the idea that eating more cholesterol leads to longer life or better health.
and here is the Grok AI system response, (the “right wing” AI system by Elon Musk) which is basically identical in its response:
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg%3D%3D_6fa562ce-8b9d-4d29-aca8-4e75b700b880
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The one thing you quickly learn in these ideological disputes about focal issues like statins and cholesterol, is to never, ever, ever take the word of a poster about an alleged quote or study conclusion. More often than not, these assertions are either distortions or outright made up “facts” and quotes. At this point if one of these ideological advocates says it’s day rather than night, I step outside to check it.
These advocates don’t necessarily conciously lie, but simply repeat things they’ve read or heard in their informational bubble.
“the head of the study said” - sure he did, I’m gonna need to see it proven, as a matter of fact, I’m going to look for it myself. If a poster is caught making a false claim, the consequnce is to no longer pay attention to anything from that source. If everybody adopted that rule, very quickly we’d have people double-checking all their own info instead of repeating disinformation. This problem of “fake news” could be nipped in the bud, and the actual initiators of disinformation could be quickly identified and dismissed from public discourse. Unfortunately people are limited in time and resources, and believe random claims in random posts as true - and here we are.
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Yes - normally I wouldn’t have time to correct this type of mis-information. But the AI systems do make it much easier to fact check claim that are suspect. Perhaps this will help move the world back towards rational debate and slow or stop the spread of misinformation. I can see reasons to be hopeful. If @judy_bb starts to run things through the good AI systems out there (the top 4 or 5) she’ll have a very different view on some of these health topics I suspect.
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Just wanted to check the accuracy of this statement via ChatGPT:
"please evaluate the factualness of this statement: “Adding natural saturated fat is the best thing you can do for your heart health: it is sugar and vegetable oils that raise triglycerides and clog arteries.”
ChatGPT:
The statement:
“Adding natural saturated fat is the best thing you can do for your heart health: it is sugar and vegetable oils that raise triglycerides and clog arteries.”
is misleading and not fully factual. Here’s a breakdown of its components:
Sugar and Triglycerides:
- High intake of added sugars, especially fructose, has been shown to raise triglyceride levels, which are associated with increased cardiovascular risk.
- Reducing sugar intake can improve heart health, particularly in people with insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome.
Some Vegetable Oils (when oxidized):
- Certain refined vegetable oils, especially when used repeatedly for high-heat frying, can become oxidized and contribute to inflammation and atherosclerosis.
- There is ongoing debate about the health impact of omega-6-rich oils (like soybean or corn oil) when consumed in excess relative to omega-3s.
What is misleading or false:
“Natural saturated fat is the best thing you can do for your heart health”:
Saturated fats (found in butter, coconut oil, fatty cuts of meat, etc.) can raise LDL cholesterol, which is a well-established risk factor for heart disease.
The statement overstates the benefits of saturated fat and ignores the broader scientific consensus, which generally recommends:
- Replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fat (especially polyunsaturated fat) lowers heart disease risk.
- The American Heart Association, WHO, and many national health bodies advise limiting saturated fat to reduce heart disease risk.
“Saturated fat does not clog arteries”:
- While the concept of “clogged arteries” is an oversimplification, atherosclerosis (plaque buildup) is a complex process influenced by multiple factors: LDL cholesterol, inflammation, triglycerides, blood pressure, etc.
- Saturated fat contributes to higher LDL, which in turn promotes plaque formation in arteries.
No one dietary change is “the best thing”:
- Heart health is affected by an overall dietary pattern, not one ingredient.
- Whole dietary approaches like the Mediterranean diet, DASH, or plant-forward diets are consistently linked to better heart outcomes.
Claim Component Verdict Explanation Saturated fat is the best for heart health Overstates benefits and contradicts consensus Sugar raises triglycerides and is harmful High sugar intake is linked to worse lipid profiles Vegetable oils clog arteries Misleading
Depends on the type and context (refined vs. cold-pressed, fried vs. fresh use)
Conclusion
The statement reflects a popular alternative nutrition viewpoint that has gained attention online but does not align with the weight of current scientific evidence. While it is important to reduce added sugars and ultra-processed seed oils, promoting saturated fat as the “best” for heart health is not supported by mainstream cardiovascular research.
Would you like sources or recent meta-analyses to support this breakdown?
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Just fucking hilarious
Periodic reminder that this is the guy who needed the max consecutive post limit doubled.
Sure - I can see your point. But like all things “it depends”. I mean you can generate infinite amounts of rational text using AI and flood the zone. So in that sense it’s correct. But I do find it helpful to quickly get the feel for a given scientific topic in summary form.
But - I should have included the sources in those previous posts… my bad. But I included the prompts, so anyone can run them again if they like.
Every situation has nuance, and I think most people here value the nuance. Rapamycin is generally helpful in mitigating many benchmarks of aging in model animals, and perhaps in humans. But there are risks and downsides, like everything. I think we should approach all issues in a similar way.
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Talk about missing the point! What was my complaint? It was: low signal to noise ratio. AI creates a lot of text, but it is often just noise. My complain was not about the amount of information - information is good if it boost the “signal” part. We do want more information. My request to raise the posting limit was so that I could raise the “signal” party specifically by posting studies, the gold standard of information distribution. That type of information - that increase - is what’s desirable and what makes this site valuable as a repository of reliable information and value-added discussion. Meanwhile, simply boosting text amount by AI with no way of verifying the information by cited sources is a negative - noise, which is what I thought objectionable.
So as so often, @amuser got it exactly backwards, and wrong again. So, in kind, I’m going to announce a “periodic reminder that this is the guy who” always gets things wrong, our very own Wrong Way Corrigan, a contrary indicator.
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So you think AI will tell me I do have plaque in my arteries when the heart scan says I don’t?
My husband had a cardiac arrest 9 years ago caused by a blood pressure medication and he was given a 1% chance of surviving IN ANY Condition! He came through it 100%. His cardiologist tells him at every checkup that he is the only reason he is still a practicing cardiologist–I suspect my husband is his only patient who ever survived with no damage (due to his clean arteries). You can read the whole story on my blog here: THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE AND AN IMPORTANT WARNING ⋆ Research and Science ⋆ Carb Wars Cookbooks
We’re all in trouble if we put such faith in the robots. At one time the majority opinion would convince us that the world is flat.
Judy
Sometimes the scans are not all that accurate. My 76 yo mother had an artery scan every year and was assured there was no calcification or blockages. 6 months after her last ‘all clear’ scan she had a heart attack , stroke and 3 stents put in for blockages that weren’t there the 6 months prior. (Hint: they probably were there but the scanning company couldn’t find them.)
I blame the scanning company, LifeLine, for not doing a proper job. This gave my mother a false sense of security that could have killed her. If you’re going to do a scan, make sure you do it with a reputable hospital.
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