godsilove wrote:Studies have shown that cholesterol is thrombogenic, and the link between cholesterol and atherosclerosis is supported by animal models. Nonetheless, whether there is a direct causal link is a moot point, considering that lowering cholesterol has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease.
What animal models? I submit that the only animal model known to occur in nature which creates a lesion similar to the human is the guinea pig. This was noticed and first published in 1950. It is possible to create "fatty streaks", in other species with a very high cholesterol diet, but these lesions seem to bear little relation to CVD in humans. (There are clever (non cholesterol) methods known that will create human-like lesions, such as restricting vitamin B6 or copper in the diet of apes.)
By the way, perhaps the strongest animal models of which you speak have been created in recent years through genetic engineering. Mice which have been genetically altered so they cannot produce their own vitamin C rapidly develop atherosclerosis of the aorta.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... d=10639167
Furthermore, I believe that the now often repeated claim that lowering cholesterol has been "shown to reduce the risk of heart disease" is an outright lie, unless clarified to some particular sub group on the basis of some limited study. On what do you base this statement?
Note that it has been reliably shown that increasing vitamin C intake lowers total cholesterol, so I can understand medicine's confusion. When increased vitamin C supplementatio is reducing the "risk of heart disease", a side-effect is lowered cholesterol.