Project 365 Day 20: It sucks being .....

From an article in the Kansas City Star

For decades the theory that lowering cholesterol is always beneficial has been a core principle of cardiology. But now some cardiologists say the results of clinical trials have raised serious questions about that theory.

“The idea that you’re just going to lower LDL and people are going to get better — that’s too simplistic, much too simplistic,” said Eric Topol, a cardiologist and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

From an article I wrote in 2006 which found similar results with total cholesterol

The finding that higher levels of total cholesterol demonstrate a low risk of mortality in aging populations is concordant with a number of recent epidemiological studies. These studies suggested that there is a significant difference between risk factors and total cholesterol levels in elderly populations compared to middle-aged populations for all cause mortality (Brescianini et al., 2003; Iribarren et al., 1995; Schatz et al., 2001; Schupf et al., 2005; Volpato et al., 2001; Weverling-Rijnsburger et al., 1997). This research showed an inverse relationship between total cholesterol and risk of either cardiovascular or all-cause mortality in elderly populations (Schupf et al., 2005). These researchers offered several potential hypotheses for this occurrence, including selective mortality (Karlamangla et al., 2004; Weverling-Rijnsburger et al., 1997) or a relationship between endotoxin and the lipoprotein-binding site, indicating that individuals with higher levels of LDL-C may be better at fighting infectious diseases (Rauchhaus et al.,2000).