I would suggest something like a Boston Heart Study. Following CHO/TRIG and other factors can get complicated. Your genetic predisposition very much needs to be addressed. The types of lipids in your body and how your body responds to them is important. For example the Genetic Samoan Population and even Native Eskimo/Inuit population have extremely high Lipid levels as a norm. Yet heart disease in those populations due to lipids in very low. They do have other problems though. Like sugar. Ya dont want to give um to many candy bars.

There are other testing facilities other then Boston Heart but it is the one I use with my practice. Insurance companies are usually reluctant to pay fully for these type studies but you can contact them through your provider for some very generous discounts. (https://bostonheartdiagnostics.com/w...thm_160108.pdf)

I would not make a decision to refuse statins based on someone else's interpretation of a study. I do understand the reluctance to take them. I have had more than a few patients refuse to take statins regardless of any study. Ha.

For them I have been able to use Niacin, Fish Oil, Zetia, and diet changes...

You also have to ask yourself why a particular consensus exists and how much it is affected by industry and politics. In my opinion it's just as dangerous or even more so to use the term "science'' as a settled argument in order to denigrate any opposing view to the one being pushed.

I'm certainly not advocating following after every nutty hypothesis, but at the same time I don't think we should become so polarized and arrogant in our opinion that we have already decided what science says with zero willingness to consider other possibilities. Science is the thing used to examine possibilities. It should not be the thing that keeps you from examining possibilities.

LOL Science is most definitely NOT about consensus. You couldn't be more wrong.

<sigh of exasperation>

"It’s important to note that a scientific consensus is not proof for a scientific theory but that it’s the result of converging lines of evidence all pointing to the same conclusion. It is therefore not a part of the scientific method but is actually a consequence of it. When people argue against a scientific consensus, they are usually misunderstanding the term or are deliberately abusing the ambiguity of the term consensus. A scientific consensus is not infallible but nonetheless represents the best knowledge available on a given scientific topic at a given time. In addition, it provides the foundation for new knowledge by generating follow-up questions for scientists to explore." -- John Cook, Skeptical Science, 2025

I'm very close to an actual research scientist studying congenital heart block in neo-natal lupus, who I quote below;
"Science is grants".

So what is consensus? Simple majority? 60%? 70%? 90%? Is that enough?

Michael Crichton talked about consensus in a lecture in 2003:I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the "consensus" is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases. In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.

In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.

In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus, the consensus took one hundred and twenty-five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant, ongoing deaths of women.

There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.

Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra.

The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.

Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.

And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.

Add statins to that list. Everyone and their mothers are on them and yet the cardiovascular incidents are going up. A recent study concluded that up to 17 million may be taking them and not need them, but with it being a $20 billion industry, why wouldn't we expect doctors to prescribe them? Modern doctors don't treat the issues, they just prescribe pills. Have a problem? Here's a pill. Pill created a side condition. Here's another pill for that. Rinse and repeat. Doctors don't get paid if you aren't sick.

People would be better off with functional health doctors, who actually try to get to the root problem. However, it's easier to just take a pill. Look at the rise of GLP-1 prescriptions. Pop a pill, lose weight. ED, pop a pill, "High" cholesterol, pop a pill. Depression, pop a pill.

That's what i do. I eat whatever I want. I refuse to base my food choices on " general scientific consensus". I am 100% certain that the healthiest and longest living people in this world don't spend hours and hours reading scientific studies on how to eat. They just live normal lives and eat intuitively.

Want to know a secret of how to be healthy and live long? Here it is:

Be rich.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...65adb823a6.png


Also​, ​​​​Sal Bandini , I stopped reading your posting after "Michael Crichton". <eye roll>

Or, live in France and have an average income. You need to be in the top decile of income in the US to have the same life expectancy as an average income earner in France.

I found this an interesting read by a credible doctor:
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/books-...clot-thickens/

It would take some serious convincing for me to consider statins.

So money and drugs increases lifespan and are the answer to good health ?. I think I'll start playing lottery. :rolleyes:

Money doesn't make you live longer, it makes things available to you that help you live longer. The questions are.....what are those things? and why does one need money to have them? I would love a discussion about those topics.

If only there were some field of study that examines that question.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1cfc2004d1.png

"You may not think it now. But by the time you have read this book, you will be convinced that I am right, and everyone else is wrong."

Dr. Malcolm Kendrick. Credible? Maybe -- to the extremely credulous.

"Malcolm Kendrick is a Scottish General Practitioner (GP), conspiracy theorist author, cholesterol denialist and low-carb diet advocate who has spent decades promoting the Atkins diet and more recently the carnivore diet. He is best known for his controversial claim that low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and total blood cholesterol levels do not increase the risk of heart disease. This is despite the fact that consistent evidence from numerous types of clinical and genetic studies has unequivocally established that LDL causes atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease." -- rationalwiki

Easy question to answer. It's all about genetics and no amount of money can buy good genetics. Some people who may have had good genetics have had their lives cut short by things such as accidents, catastrophic events , war, famine, serious injuries etc but if you put those things aside it's really all about genetics that determines human lifespan. There is no food, no supplement , no exercise routine that can actually reverse physical, biological and mental decline. From the day you born the clock starts ticking and there is nothing you can do to reverse that. Drugs only mask the symptoms and produce a whole bunch of side- effects but don't actually fix the root of the problem. All the bio-hacking and longevity nonsense that's so trendy out there today will actually do nothing and may even shorten your lifespan instead of extending it.

My goodness gracious.

Who wants to live there. They certinally don't. Been there done that.

Then I’ll state the obvious and I think we can have a consensus that we’re all going to die.

Genetics play a huge role, but many things get blamed on genetics when there is no scientific evidence that can point to genetics as the cause. It becomes an easy answer which denies blame and excuses personal responsibility.

I know it's sometimes hard to tell because this forum is dominated by Americans with colloquially American viewpoints, but the forum is actually international with contributors from many countries. For example, me: I'm French. I think we're both glad that you've found your place in the world, and it's not France.

Good old CA home sweet home in another 3 years.

So, do you think the people with money have inherently better genetics? Does it have anything to do with access to healthcare in a society that requires people to pay out of pocket rather than have universal healthcare?

No I don't think they have better genetics. There are millions of wealthy people who have poor health, are obese, diabetic, suffer all kinds of health problems and are forced to take a long list of prescription drugs to keep them alive.

Now show the results starting at age forty after all we guys are done with the "watch this stunt"