Product Description

Statins are widely prescribed to lower blood cholesterol levels and claim to offer unparalleled protection against heart disease. Believed to be completely safe and capable of preventing a whole series of other conditions, they are the most profitable drug in the history of medicine. In this groundbreaking book, GP Malcolm Kendrick exposes the truth behind the hype. He will change the way we think about cholesterol forever. Rubbishing the diet-heart hypothesis, in which clinical trials 'prove' that high cholesterol causes heart disease and a high-fat diet leads to heart disease, Kendrick lambastes a powerful pharmaceutical industry and unquestioning medical profession, who, he claims, perpetuate the madcap concepts of 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol and cholesterol levels to convince millions of people to unnecessarily spend billions of pounds on statins. Clearly and comprehensively debunking assumptions on what constitute a healthy lifestyle and diet, "The Great Cholesterol Con" is the accessible, indispensable and absorbing case against statins and for a more common-sense approach to heart disease and general wellbeing. No more over-hyped miracle drugs; no more garlic, red wine, anti-oxidants, fruit or vegetables; even a vegetarian diet is rejected in this controversial yet authoritative critique of how we have been mislead over how food and drugs affect our coronary health. Here, for the first time, is the invaluable guide for anyone who though there was a miracle cure for heart disease, "The Great Cholesterol Con" is a fascinating breakthrough that will set dynamite under the whole area.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #457296 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review

About the Author
Dr Kendrick is a GP in Macclesfield. He writes for Pulse magazine in the UK, and redflagsweekly, an on-line health magazine based in Canada. He has written technical papers on insulin resistance, and multiple sclerosis. He developed the educational website for the European Society of Cardiology.

Customer Reviews

Can lowering cholesterol be worse than cholesterol?
If you've somehow managed to sidestep the pressure to go on statins, this book will provide you with justification. Kendrick walks you, step by step, through your own physiology and bio-chemistry, and backs his contentions that cholesterol can not be the cause of heart disease by citing and summarizing published studies that bear this out. The book is technical but highly readable thanks to an easy conversational style (if your high school biology teacher had been Kendrick, you'd have understood everything and gotten an A). If you don't really care about arterial plaques and exactly how they're formed (and exactly how they're not) the take-away message is pretty much this: statins are ineffective for women, especially for women over 50 years old, and for anybody over 70 years old. Further, statistical studies may indicate that lowering cholesterol encourages cancer. Many of the points Kendrick makes here are also borne out in Gary Taubes' excellent "Good Calories, Bad Calories." Both of these books are recommended.

I also feel somewhat compelled to add this: While doctors will tell you they've rarely seen anyone with side effects from statins, among my own circle of middle-aged friends, I know 3 who've had serious problems with their livers, one who had some muscles permanently destroyed, one--a usually energetic tennis player-- who felt, for the few months he took statins, as though he had the flu, and could barely go to work-- and one who was left with ringing in the ears and a facial tic. All of these are listed as side effects of statins, as Kendrick points out.

Could Be More Scientific
I liked the book, and agree wholeheartedly with its conclusion that stress -- not cholesterol -- causes heart attacks. However, the author's flippant tone makes one wonder at times if he's being serious or not.

He also seems to muddy the waters somewhat, using "heart attack deaths" as the definition of "heart disease." True, death is the ultimate statistic, but I'd imagine that most readers would also be highly concerned about debilitating, non-fatal heart problems.

Heart disease isn't exactly a "fun" subject, and I'd have a preferred a more scholarly, scientific approach, such as Ravnskov's "Cholesterol Myths." Still very much worth reading, though.

excellent
Superb science/medical writing. I was already familiar with a lot of the story about cholesterol misinformation, but I still found it very useful to see the issues dissected one-by-one, with comprehensive references to the relevant research studies. The author is obviously extremely well-read in this area, far beyond the main dietary studies. His final chapter about stress and heart-disease is a must-read for anyone interested in these topics, and the fact that he had been so thorough in the earlier part of the book makes me take his speculations seriously. It comes with a good dose of quirky British (actually Scottish) humor, which I enjoyed a lot.