Regarding the 11/10/08 New York Times article Cholesterol-Fighting Drugs Show Wider Benefit by Pam Belluck
This important study supports the conception that the ideal total cholesterol is between 90-130, similar to all extant societies that do not yet have grocery stores, electricity, or automobiles. Those cultures also have no heart attack, diabetes, cancer of the breast or colon or prostate. That total cholesterol translates as an LDL of 55-60 as achieved in the JUPITER study. Yet the whole story also involves proper percent body fat (the lack of fat under the skin so that the muscle bundles can be seen on the abdomen), the inflammatory protein cardiac CRP of 1 or less, triglycerides of less than 100, another cholesterol congener LP a of mid-normal values, homocysteine of mid normal values = 8, the A1C diabetes test less than 5.5, a hemoglobin red blood count of 14 or less & so on. This important study shows what medicines can do to reduce heart disease, the above sited comparative sociology shows what we can do without medicines to reduce disease frequency & costs.
H Robert Silverstein, MD
Medical Director, Preventive Medicine Center