Low Cholesterol Kills
Prestigious U.S. medicine (which is often fantastic) is wrongly advises low fat high carb diets, overtreats moderately high blood pressure, overprescribes NSAIDs and antibiotics, overtests for breast cancer, underprescribes sunlight and vitamin D, and, it seems, kills people by lowering their cholesterol w/ dangerous statins.
The low-cholesterol state doctors try to keep us in is actually associated with the most death (though this could merely be that old and dying people are made to lower their cholesterol, and if young people lowered it they would be fine or even healthier)
A 2011 study from Norway, based on 500,000 person-years of observation, found drastically different results. For both men and women, the lowest levels of total cholesterol (below 5.0 mmol/L) were associated with the most death. For men, the best level was intermediate — what the Mayo Clinic calls “borderline high”. For women, the safest levels were the highest.
If high cholesterol causes heart disease, as we are so often told, the pattern for women makes no sense. For a long time, experts have told us to limit egg consumption because eggs are high in cholesterol. However, a new study shows that egg consumption has no association with heart disease risk.
(Kyle says in comments that they only correlate with high/low total serum cholesterol, when doctors more frequently measure LDL and HDL rather than total - so it’s possible that the more precise modern medical recommendation isn’t so badly wrong - though the study authors claim it probably is, citing that 75% of Norwegians are LDL,HDL,etc scored as at risk of heart disease and needing treatment, presumably diet+exercise+statins; 75% is probably has too high a false positive rate for such an extreme intervention).