Misinformation About Heart Disease

On May 14 Dennis Prager had a guest named Dr. Richman on his radio program, who is one of the few cardiologists who is able to communicate clearly about cardiovascular disease. Dr. Richman explains that it is the number of lipoproteins in your arteries, NOT your cholesterol, that causes cardiovascular disease. He gives this analogy: You are on a freeway. The lipoproteins are the vehicles on the freeway. Cholesterol, both good and bad, are the passengers in the vehicles. If the freeway has too many vehicles, it becomes clogged. There might be few vehicles carrying lots of cholesterol, and the freeway will not become clogged.

Dr. Richman urges people at risk to take a blood test that costs 99 dollars to test for lipoproteins. You can have lots of "good" cholesterol and still die of heart disease. Dr. Richman is Prager's personal doctor on these matters, and he appears quarterly on the program.

In a related story, Cheerios is in the news. Whether Cheerios is "clinically proven to lower cholesterol," or not, is completely irrelevant to the issue of cardiovascular disease. It is not the cholesterol; it is the number of lipoproteins! How could all the health professions have allowed the public to be so infected with such a convulted mess of misinformation about cholesterol? It amazes me.