Cholesterol. That is Chris Masterjohn’s main focus. It is one of the most maligned substances and one of the most misunderstood. And it is where we get some of our worst dietary advice from the mainstream media and medical industry.
Some of us give up on modern nutritional dogma after reading too much, when we realize it is too loaded with fallacies and cognitive dissonance. Others, such as Chris Masterjohn, give up after direct negative experience.
Cholesterol, and lipid metabolism, is a complex subject. It’s not surprising it’s been broken down into such stupefyingly simple terms. But this simplification has done the common man a great disservice. It gives the impression people know all they need to know and precludes debate.
Chris has dug deep, learning all that he can. He has provided critical reviews of both Uffe Ravnskov’s The Cholesterol Myths and Daniel Steinberg’s The Cholesterol Wars. I myself have not read The Cholesterol Myths, but I have read The Cholesterol Wars and Gary Taube’s Good Calories Bad Calories.
Perhaps I like Chris because I find he has come to many of the same conclusions I have. That may be confirmation bias. Or it may simply be the fact that he has discovered a way that makes all the pieces fit, and it is similar to how I have managed to put everything together and so far I have yet to see anybody piece it all together any better.
Chris rightly labels his theories as hypothetical and clearly delineates where and what type of studies would need to be performed to validate them. He’s also careful with terminology, with derivation of causation, and with what exactly can be ascertained from any particular study.
Recently, he’s written an alternative theory to the lipid hypothesis, which is really just an old debate that was closed without proper scientific evidence. Personally, I agree with Chris that is more likely the amount of time LDL particles spend in the blood, rather than the total level, that determines their role in athersclerosis. It was one of my biggest beefs with Steinberg, who stated simply that elevated cholesterol as a single variable “proves” that hypercholesterolemia alone is causal to heart disease*. I am impressed and grateful that somebody else has also seen this flaw in Steinberg’s logic.
If you want to get a real understanding of how lipid metabolism works, and what the likely factors are that cause it to break down**, then forget what you already know about cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and dietary fat. These concepts are simplistic, backwards, and will only get in your way. Prepare yourself like a sponge and get ready to start soaking in lots of information, because you’ll need it to start forming your own understanding and making your own decisions.
*Steinberg talks from the very beginning of his book about how he's laying all the groundwork to prove the lipid hypothesis, and I kept waiting for him to provide non-circumstantial evidence, but of course it never happens.
Further Reading:
More on the Lipid Hypothesis
More on Cholesterol and Heart Disease
Example of how misconstrued evidence can turn into wild claims in the media when it supports conventional dogma
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