Saturday, May 03, 2008

I got the book.

"Dietary cholesterol . . . has an insignificant effect on blood cholesterol. It might elevate cholesterol levels in a small percentage of highly sensitive individuals in a small percentage of highly sensitive individuals, but for most of us, it's clinically meaningless." Taubes, Good Calories. Bad Calories at p. 19.

He also makes the point that the increase in heart disease during the twentieth century occurred because other, infectious diseases were being dealt with successfully, allowing people to live long enough to die of a heart attack. While it is true that the increase in heart disease occurred at the same time that it appeared that Americans changed their diets to more meat, eggs, etc. (an appearance that may itself be inaccurate because of the problem with getting good numbers in the early half of the century), the mere association does not mean that there is a cause and effect relationship between eating dietary cholesterol and heart disease.

No comments: