[ExI] long live ldl

[William Flynn Wallace]

A renowned cholesterol skeptic and author of *The Cholesterol Myths*
<https://www.amazon.com/Cholesterol-Myths-Exposing-Fallacy-Saturated/dp/0967089700/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512439762&sr=8-1&keywords=the+cholesterol+myths>,
Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, wrote this on our website on April 18, 2017:

“The Repatha trial was originally planned to go on for 4 years, but as the
number of heart events was significantly lower in the treatment group
already after 26 months, the authors decided to stop the trial.

“But the number of deaths, both from heart disease and from other causes,
had increased! Not with statistical significance, but it might have become
significant if the trial had continued. A relevant question is therefore:
Did they stop the trial because the total number of events had become
significantly lower in the treatment group, or because the number of deaths
was increasing?

“How do they explain that 444 died in the treatment group, but only 426
among the untreated? I mean, if ‘bad’ high LDL-cholesterol was the cause of
atherosclerosis and heart disease, then we should expect that a 59%
lowering of this ‘poisonous’ molecule should lower mortality, not increase
it.

“The reason is of course that a high level of LDL-cholesterol is not
poisonous; it is beneficial, as we have documented in a review of 19
studies including more than 68,000 people above the age of 60 published in *BMJ
Open* <http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/6/6/e010401.full.pdf>(
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/6/6/e010401.full.pdf). Almost all
studies found that elderly people with the highest levels of the ‘bad’
LDL-cholesterol live the longest; even longer than those on statin
treatment; no study found the opposite. A reasonable question is therefore:
Why should we lower the bad cholesterol if those with the highest values
live the longest?”
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