Science unsettled …

… Cholesterol lowering has no impact | Dr. Malcolm Kendrick. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

One of the most significant, and of great interest to me personally, was a critical examination of the benefits of lowering cholesterol. This was published on the fourth of August. The paper was called ‘Hit or miss: the new cholesterol targets,’ and it came out in Evidence Based Medicine, one of the key titles that sits under the umbrella of British Medical Journal publishing

It was carefully worded, as all clinical papers are, but a key section of the press release was as follows: “Setting targets for ‘bad’ (LDL) cholesterol levels to ward off heart disease and death in those at risk might seem intuitive, but decades of research have failed to show any consistent benefit for this approach, reveals an analysis of the available data, published online in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.”