I was perusing this book: Healthy Agriculture, Healthy Nutrition, Healthy People (which I don't have access to, so I used Google Books). There is an interesting paper in there titled:
World Rev Nutr Diet. 2011;102:124-36. Epub 2011 Aug 5.New Cholesterol Guidelines for Longevity (2010).Okuyama H, Hamazaki T, Ogushi Y; Committee on Cholesterol Guidelines for Longevity, the Japan Society for Lipid Nutrition.
http://imageshack.us...534b534b53.jpg/
They show this picture which summarizes the gist of the author's opinion which says that higher LDL and TC are protective in terms of ALL-Cause mortality. They make the claim that ever since the Vioxx scandal the EU has been much tougher on drug companies, and in post-2004 studies done by INDEPENDENT scientists the studies show no benefit of statins. And they summarize it in this table:
http://imageshack.us...fjgfjgfjgf.jpg/
Anyway in the parts available on Google Books the authors cite some studies supporting their claim in Figure 1 (as in this post).
Japanese who are in a higher LDL-C level will live longer than those who are in a lower LDL-C level Yoichi Ogushi1) and Syoutai Kobayashi2) 1) Department of Medical Informatics of Tokai University School of Medicine
2) Shimane University Hospital (Received October 30, 2008) (Accepted January 20, 2009)
Summary
The targets of lipid lowering therapy in Japan are severer than those in western countries. Two hundred twenty mg⁄dl for total cholesterol (TCH), 140mg⁄dl for LDL-C, 150 mg⁄dl for triglyceride (TG) are used for the target values. In western countries, those values are 270 mg⁄dl, 190 mg⁄dl and 1,000 mg⁄dl respectively for low risk persons. But, a morbidity rate of coronary heart disease in Japan is a third in western countries. Strange to say, the number of women who accepts the therapy is twice of that of men in Japan. We have verified the targets used in Japan by some kinds of studies. We established clinical reference intervals of TCH, LDL-C, TG and HDL-C from the results of health checkup of about 700,000 persons by the method comparable to NCCLS in USA. We performed cohort studies and found cutoff points where mortalities increased significantly. These results are equal to the targets used in western countries. People diagnosed as hyperlipidemia by Japanese standard have less morbidity of strokes. If they develop strokes, their clinical indexes are better than persons in normal lipid level. In conclusion, the guideline for hyperlipidemia in Japan should be revised according to Japanese evidences soon.
Are the upper limits for serum cholesterol levels necessary?
Serious problems found in Japan Atherosclerosis Society Guidelines for Prevention of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Diseases Tomohito Hamazaki1) 1) Department of Clinical Sciences, Institute of Natural Medicine, University of Toyama (Received January 13, 2009) (Accepted January 20, 2009)
Summary
In 2007, Japan Atherosclerosis Society published Guidelines for prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. However, the Guidelines had serious flaws with regard to serum cholesterol levels. The followings are the list of those flaws: #1. They started to use LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels instead of serum total cholesterol (TC) levels. In this case they must show at least some basic data on the relationship between LDL-C and mortality or morbidity from coronary heart disease (CHD). In the Guidelines there were no such data at all! #2. They recommended LDL-C be below 140 mg⁄dL or 3.6 mmol⁄L (corresponding to TC of 220 mg⁄dL or 5.7 mmol⁄L). These levels were unreasonable considering that TC levels of 240-260 are the best in terms of all-cause mortality in Japan. They did not show any data on all-cause mortality in the Guidelines. #3. There are big differences in mortality and morbidity from CHD between sexes. However, they discussed the matter without differentiating sexes, just counting being male as one risk factor. #4. Conflict of interest of editors of the Guidelines has never been disclosed as of the end of year 2008. #4. Diets for preventing CHD have never succeeded in Japan yet. #5. The only large-scaled study with a statin in Japan (MEGA Study) had incredible defects; the cholesterol-lowering strategy depended on that extremely unreliable study. #6. The astonishing results of 4S (Simvastatin Scandinavian Survival Study) has hardly been reproduced by any other trials. There are serious doubts about the data from pharmaceutical company-supported trials. In conclusion, familial hypercholesterolemia is probably the only target of statins.
Do people think this difference is due to the fact that the incidence of stroke is larger in Japan then elsewhere, thus moving the mortality optimum?
They also cite this stroke study:
Circulation. 2009 Apr 28;119(16):2136-45. Epub 2009 Apr 13.
Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations and death due to intraparenchymal hemorrhage: the Ibaraki Prefectural Health Study.
Noda H, Iso H, Irie F, Sairenchi T, Ohtaka E, Doi M, Izumi Y, Ohta H.
Anyway, I don't have access to the full book, but I would love to read it. However I find what I have read to be interesting. When I tried sieving through all the data I found that
Just so its not all Japanese papers, here is an analysis done by the controversial Therapeutics Initiative in Canada: http://ti.ubc.ca/letter77 The conclusion is:
Conclusions
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are challenging and require much more than locating RCTs and plugging in the numbers.
- The claimed mortality benefit of statins for primary prevention is more likely a measure of bias than a real effect.
- The reduction in major CHD serious adverse events with statins as compared to placebo is not reflected in a reduction in total serious adverse events.
- Statins do not have a proven net health benefit in primary prevention populations and thus when used in that setting do not represent good use of scarce health care resources.
I would love to hear MR and Kismet's response to this.
N.B. for those olive oil lovers out there, apparently there is a carbon neutral olive oil out now: World Rev Nutr Diet.
2011;102:221-5. Epub 2011 Aug 5.
The first carbon neutral extra virgin olive oil in the world!
Kefalogiannis A.
Edited by Sillewater, 13 November 2011 - 07:10 AM.