Biotech Values

[biomaven0]

Well I myself have been something of a cholesterol skeptic, and I still believe it's perfectly fine to eat cholesterol-rich foods. Evidence for my skeptical position is that no drug other than statins that reduces cholesterol has ever been shown to produce actual benefit. Attempts to reduce choleserol via diet also likely do not work - CHD benefits are offset by increased suicides and accidents.

But the statistical link between high LDL and heart disease is absolutely clear. However, causation is still up for grabs, and the field is rife with biomarkers that turned out to be non-causative - homocysteine is perhaps the best-established of these. (High homocysteine levels in the population correlate very strongly with CHD, and people with the genetic disease homocystinuria have very high homocysteine levels and incredibly high CHD levels - about a quarter die before age 30 from CHD. Yet a trial of folic acid/B6/B12 supplements reduced the homocysteine levels but failed to impact CHD).

Peter