(1) : [b]a progressive motion of a body around an axis so that any line of the body parallel to the axis returns to its initial position [/b] while remaining parallel to the axis in transit and usually at a constant distance from it

Hi Max–

I guess I was wrong.  According to this definition statins have indeed brought about a ‘revolution’ in cardiology.

Cheers–

MRE

Hi LC–

You’re right.  How could I have forgotten?  As I’m sure you realize, our leaders are constantly striving to burnish our reputation throughout the world.

Cheers–

MRE

Hi Ethyl–

Thanks for the story of your cat’s problem.  You are right.  Most doctors consider their efforts a huge triumph when they successfully treat their patient’s lab values.  If they get their patient’s cholesterol levels to fall, they are delighted, irrespective of how the patient’s themselves are actually doing.  In not just a few cases, their achieving the ultimate end point–cholesterol lowering–brings on the ultimate serious side effect–death–in their patients.  Sad, when you consider that it’s never been shown that cholesterol lowering does squat.

Best–

MRE

Speaking of which, one of the political analysts I like reading said that once we leave Iraq to its civil war, a Saddam-like ruler will develop during and after the civil war. This will be necessary to do what Saddam did, which was to keep an uneasy peace among all the factions. So the wag’s joke is actually not one.

Hi LCforevah–

Why come up with a new Saddam when we’ve already got one whose resume we’re familiar with?  Why take a chance on a unknown entity?

Out of curiosity, who are some of the political analysts you enjoy reading?  I wonder if any of them are on my list.

Cheers–

MRE

Not shown in the US. Its a BBC 3-parter, i think you’d really like it.

As always gasho for your time and effort

Hi Simon–

Watched the video. Can’t wait to watch the next two parts when I’ve got a couple of hours to spare.

If you haven’t yet, you should read Andrew Sullivan’s book The Conservative Soul. It describes how to get out of this mess.

Cheers–

MRE

All while the prevalence of smoking has declined significantly too!

Hi Regina–

Great insight!  We know that smoking causes heart disease, and we know that smoking has been on the wane for years.  We should expect to see a major drop in the incidence of heart disease as a consequence.  But we haven’t; it’s stayed about the same.  A revolution in cardiology indeed!

Cheers–

MRE

Interesting analogy. I guess the major difference is that long before the current disaster in Iraq there were many, many people who could simply join the dots and foresee the pointless and inexcusable catastrophe that was to come. “Another Vietnam” was frequently predicted, although the reality is (and was always going to be) a great deal worse, given the long term consequences … and not just for Iraqis.
I guess it is also hard to think of anyone less suited to the job at hand (devising a politically palatable exit strategy) than the so called “foreign policy realist” Baker given he was one of the chief architects of the post Gulf War plan to foment a Shiite and Kurd uprising against Saddam, and then to abandon those who did so to genocide. Strangely, the ‘he’s done the job before’ line doesn’t cut much ice with me.

Coming back to cholesterol!!

The difference is that despite what a handful of people such as yourself say, the drug company propaganda is all most people hear, and it is assumed that the “experts’ either know what they are talking about, or at the very least, have public health as their first priority. Hence the sympathetic reporting of Pfizer’s ‘troubles’, and the scant regard for the terrible human cost of their misguided trials. We are led to believe, if we consider the implications of drug trial death rates at all, that sacrifices (by others) are sometimes necessary on the path to the nirvana of a drug ‘cure’.

I have a business partner in his early sixties and my father (83) – both diabetics, both on so many pills they would probably rattle if shaken … both, of course, on statins (and ‘heart healthy’ ‘cholesterol lowering’ margarine). Much as I would like to, there is very little I can say. Both have had recent health scares – a blockage requiring a stent and a thankfully minor stroke respectively, so they both feel they are getting the best of care from their various doctors. Neither is likely to read anything which seriously challenges the orthodox ‘artery clogging’ lipid hypothesis … even though I stand ready to supply a mountain of books and research papers at the slightest sign of weakness!

Thankfully(?), at least when it comes to foreign policy, the cost of pursuing strategies which inflame rather than heal are in plain view, and there is no shortage of independent analysis of where things went wrong. Yes we still have to (finally) learn the lessons, but it is open to anyone to do just that. With drug company dominated medical research and reporting, most people will never even know what the real question was.

Cheers,

Malcolm

Hi Malcolm–

Thanks for the insightful comment.  I agree with you about Baker.  It would be like hiring Dean Ornish to tell us where the low-fat diet has gone wrong.

Sorry about your dad.  I know a lot of people in the same boat.  They have problems that could be easily solved with a dietary change, but hang in there instead with the advice (always to reduce fat and take statins) from their docs who have bought the Big Pharma approach hook line and sinker.

Best–

MRE

Fat causes heart disease;
diabetics have elevated risk of heart disease;
Therefore: diabetics must avoid fat.

Were it not for this; “W” could afford a couple more little wars. Maybe the world is actually better off WITH the cholesterol war?

Pharma is running a commercial boasting about having 77 new diabetes drugs under development. It is tantamount to blasphemy to address any health problem without a patentable molecule.

Hi George–

You’ve summed it up.  The idea that fat is bad is so entrenched that no one can get past it.  I’m convinced that if someone came up with a therapy that would save hundreds of thousands of lives but in the process would raise the amount of fat in the diet, such a therapy would be rejected out of hand.  Wait.  There is something like that.  It’s called the low-carb diet.  Has it been rejected out of hand by the mainstream?  You make the call.

I can tell you this.  If any pharmaceutical company could put the power of the low-carb diet to reduce disease in a pill it would make more money than the government.  The sad thing is, that it’s all there for free, but has few takers.  Why?  Because of the propaganda of the mainstream.  Sad.

Best–

MRE