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The Great Cholesterol Con |  | Author: Anthony Colpo
Publisher: LULU
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
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Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 109076
Media: Paperback
Edition: Second Edition, Revised and Updated
Pages: 430
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 1430309334
Dewey Decimal Number: 613
EAN: 9781430309338
ASIN: 1430309334
Publication Date: October 18, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
heart disease, cholesterol, saturated fat, fat,
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 45
You need to read this November 18, 2009
R. Lee (Southern California)
Quite a book! In some places it is somewhat technical and requires your full attention but it is of such value that you should do whatever it takes to read this book. Anthony Colpo is not a doctor, however, he has the ability to put together all the information to show you what a scam the drug industry is. Taking statin drugs will literally "kill" you and this book tells you why. Colpo documents his research so you can do you own if you have the desire to verify his. I will never take a statin drug and have told my doctor that. Even he says he is not sure about them, however, he stated, "it is the Standard of Care at this time" so he must prescribe them unless you, as a patient, refuse to use them. Read this book and then be prepared to ask yourself if everything you have been told about Cholesterol is true and whether you want to take statins.
 Important book desperately in need of editing October 3, 2009
J. Seidman (Illinois, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Colpo is literally addressing a life and death topic with this book. That makes it a shame that this is a self-published book that never passed under the critical eye of an editor. Colpo makes many important points, but getting to them requires a great deal of patience.
He goes through in great detail the many studies that have investigated the role of saturated fat, benefits of statins, and other cholesterol topics. He does an excellent job of showing how these studies' results have been twisted, or were simply bad science. For example, studies that show statins' benefits in people with existing disease somehow get extrapolated to suggesting everyone should take statins. Or, studies that show decreases in cardiovascular disease fail to discuss how rates of other fatal illness increased.
Colpo lays on the studies so thickly that reading this book is much like reading a very long journal meta-analysis. An quote from the book: "An important vitamin E isomer known as gamma-tocopherol has been shown to inhibit the formation of proinflammatory eicosanoids and subsequent inflammation-induced damage in rats." Those readers lucky enough not to have spent years reading journal articles may find the style stifling.
Much more readable are his discussions of the politics and personalities behind "proving" the lipid hypothesis. There is also a good discussion of how entrenched interests (farmers, drug companies, etc.) are highly motivated to continue promoting the hypothesis. There are some amazing, and terrifying, pro-carb quotes from the likes of the American Diabetes Association.
Despite Colpo's extensive research and criticism of poor science, he occasionally does absurd things when they support his argument. For example, in his discussion of helpful supplements, he discusses how the vitamin and mineral content of many vegetables has plummeted since 1963. His source? An online article in Life Extension Magazine. Yes, after all his arguments that health choices should be driven by proven science, he uses as a source the marketing materials of a supplement company!
I understand why many people give this book five star reviews: the topic is so important, and the information so persuasive, that I can forgive many writing sins. However, there are many books covering the same topic - even one with the same title - and I would guess that several of them are much more readable than Colpo's effort.
If you have a heart, you should read this book September 24, 2009
Joanne www.openmindrequired.com (Pennsylvania)
Our whole understanding of nutrition has been moulded by the paradigm that high cholesterol and fat cause heart disease--known as the lipid theory--and that foods containing these should be avoided or minimally consumed. Instead of eggs for breakfast, we should have cereal or fruit. We should eat poultry and fish as opposed to red meats and cut away all the fat and skin. We also need to avoid butter and use vegetable oils for their polyunsaturated fatty acids.
I accepted this paradigm without question, which led me to embrace a raw, vegan diet as the "optimum" diet, a diet I was never able to adhere to for longer than five days and which kept me obsessing about food. I stumbled upon the paleolithic diet community, and they were all saying the science behind the "lipid theory" was flawed.
The lipid theory says because there is cholesterol in atherosclerotic plaque, it must be the cause of the plaque. Upon this assumption, the entire heart disease industry focuses its efforts on lowering cholesterol by any means possible. It would be like blaming a Band-aid for the cut it covers and trying to remove them from your medicine cabinet. Cholesterol is a necessary component of health, and it turns out low cholesterol is implicated in many diseases, including cancer.
The Great Cholesterol Con can help you understand how the lipid theory was formulated and gained acceptance, the flaws in interpretation of scientific studies as well as the manipulation of data, the studies we don't hear about showing high cholesterol does not damage the heart, the dangers of low cholesterol, how the low-fat mantra has impacted the health of industrialized nations, the dangers of vegetable oils, and habits that will promote heart health.
This book is comprehensive, covering much more than what I've mentioned and citing hundreds of scientific studies, and so it is a bit tedious at times. It took me over a month to get through it. But it was worth the effort.
Let's ask ourselves, have we seen a decrease in heart disease since embracing the lipid theory in the 1980s? Hardly. In fact, we've seen a huge increase in obesity and diabetes on the low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet recommended to us. I've heard that some doctors want to put everybody on statins and that they're even beginning to market them to children. This is unconscionable and we must educate ourselves to prevent this.
Please, if you have a heart, read this book before you start experiencing health issues. If you are taking statins, invest in this book and open your mind to the possibility that you have been lied to by bad science. If the lipid theory base of the pyramid is wrong, then every stone built upon the pyramid is equally faulty.
Now, I'm going to go cook some eggs from happy, free-roaming, pasture-raised chickens.
 Be open minded and skeptical August 15, 2009
M. Gervais (Huntersville, NC United States)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
In general, this is a good book, well written with lots of studies quoted to back up the author's arguments. Because of my familial hypocholesteremia, it is comforting to know that total cholesterol levels have very little if anything to do with heart disease. For anyone told by their doctor to lower their cholesterol through drugs or supplements, read this book first.
However, I give it four stars because like many books on nutrition, the author will tend to pull the desired information from a study to support his point, while failing to mention other parts of the study that may contradict it. The only way to know this is by reading another perspective or the study itself. After reading dozen's of nutritional books that quote similar studies, I found a few of his arguments of little value.
For instance, his argument for the consumption of meat and saturated fat is somewhat exaggerated I believe. One would get the impression that meat is highly nutritious and should be consumed regularly. Although meat does have some beneficial amino acids and nutrients, I would disagree that it's "highly nutritious", aside from perhaps a couple organ meats, which most people find disgusting anyway. He also defends his point by quoting the "French Paradox" as an explanation as to why the French have lower CHD then surrounding European countries despite there heavy meat and cheese consumption. They have lower stress levels, which may help explain it. Maybe so, but when compared to some Asian countries that eat far less meat and dairy, France's CHD levels are still extremely high. Of course, the author doesn't mention that as it would dilute his argument. There are also an overwhelming number of studies that would suggest lesser meat consumption is better all around with recommendations of no more than a few servings per week, most desirable.
When he discusses why statins aren't all they're cracked up to be he shows a table that shows the CHD mortality and overall mortality of various statin studies. Most of the studies show lesser deaths on statins, albeit by a statistically insignificant margin in many cases. Then he goes on to show the benefits of certain supplements in other studies that show statistically better results than the statins. But the results aren't much better and I presume because of funding the samples aren't as large. So I don't see that to support his argument as strongly as he thinks it does. The problem with all the studies in these tables that I see, is that the time period is way to short, 2 to 6 years. I don't see how that could be conclusive enough for anyone, which brings me to my next point.
Many studies are unintentionally flawed by researchers, funders, industries, and reporters. So when a book or newspaper quotes a study, be highly skeptical of the information. Also, be skeptical of books like this that pull the information it wants to formulate a theory or contradict one.
Other than the meat emphasis, the other dietary and exercise recommendations are in line with many other reputable nutrition books out there. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables, seeds and nuts, raw if you can. And avoid eating lots of cereal grains and of course avoid refined and processed foods as much as possible. Exercise, regularly and keep the stress low. Same basic stuff, it's just nice to know we don't need to get too excited when cholesterol levels are "high".
The Great Cholesterol Con March 19, 2009
Fran Johnston (Belen, NM USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is a must read if you have high cholesterol and the drugs aren't working. My husband has been taking Lipitor and everything else to lower his cholesterol, nothing has worked. Now we know why. This book tells you things about cholesterol that the media won't publish.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 45
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