Dietary Fat and Heart Disease Link

From In The Pipeline:

This doesn’t mean that each patient benefits a little but rather that 82 will receive no prognostic benefit. The fact that no other cholesterol lowering drug has shown a benefit in terms of mortality supports the hypothesis that the benefits of statins are independent of their effects on cholesterol.

Derek’s comment hits at the heart of quick, media friendly health recommendations:

You’d think that there would be nothing more well worked-out than the role of different kinds of diets in heart disease, but the closer you look, the messier the situation is.

I think one of the biggest complications is the large amount of money to be made in a lot of markets for any new health revelation.

Eat more fiber, buy Colon Blow! A cup of our Beetle Juice has 100% of the recommended daily intake of anti-oxidants! A statin a day keeps the hearse away.

The fervor of new markets tends to drown out reason.