By Prof Zulfiqarali Premji

Users of cholesterol-lowering medication like Lipitor and Statin can now rejoice; cholesterol has officially been removed from the ‘Bad Boys’ list!

The US authorities have finally acknowledged that cholesterol is NOT a factor of much concern, after all – thereby doing a U-turn regarding their warnings to humanity beginning in earnest in the 1970s to keep away from high-cholesterol foods so as to avoid clogged arteries and heart diseases.

Cholesterol is a compound of the sterol-type in most body tissues. Cholesterol and its derivatives are important constituents of cell membranes, and precursors of other steroid compounds. But it has been associated with increased risks of heart and blood vessel diseases.

The warnings against cholesterol were so intense that they created a new medical diagnosis: ‘You have high cholesterol!’ It now turns out that it was indeed one great big hoax.

In due course, Big Pharma extracted some $2 trillion from consumers in the name of ‘cholesterol-lowering treatment’.

What a shame on medical research and the relevant authorities. What now seems their incompetence helped in getting away with $2 trillion from people who were otherwise physically fit! The public was continually misinformed for decades via glitzy and perhaps fabricated research results.


How, then, can the common man and woman trust medical research results today? Whom should we trust when it’s now clear that even the most sacrosanct (medical) profession can be so easily manipulated? Where are ethics in medical science?

All the processes of high-index medical journalism and related publications have become a travesty, and better, more functional processes are needed to restore sanity to the sector.

The new food list shows that eggs, butter, full-fat dairy products, nuts, coconut oil and meats have been reclassified as safe, having been expunged from formerly blacklisted nutrients.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) – which is responsible for updating food guidelines every five years – stated in its findings for 2015 that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans had previously recommended that cholesterol intake be limited to no more than 300mg/day.

But, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) would not bring forward this recommendation because “available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum (blood) cholesterol – consistent with the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC). The DGAC will, in response, no longer warn people against eating high-cholesterol foods; it will, instead, focus on sugar as the main substance of dietary concern...”

The US cardiologist, Dr Steven Nissen, said “it’s the right decision. We got the dietary guidelines wrong. They’ve been wrong for decades...”

The whole truth about cholesterol is that the liver produces most of the cholesterol in you. Your brain is primarily made of cholesterol, which is essential for nerve cells to function. Cholesterol is the basis for the creation of all the steroid hormones, including estrogen, testosterone and corticosteroids.

High cholesterol in the body is a clear indication that the liver is in good health.

Dr. George V. Mann – associate director of the Framingham Study for the Incidence and Prevalence of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and its risk factors – states that “saturated fats and cholesterol in the diet are not the cause of coronary heart disease. That myth is the greatest deception of the century, perhaps of any century!”

So, you can stop trying to change your cholesterol levels. Studies have proved beyond reasonable doubt that cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease – but also that it won’t stop a heart attack! Many of the people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels.

Our body needs 950mg of cholesterol for daily metabolism, mainly produced by the liver. Only 15 per cent of the cholesterol comes from what we eat.

Supporters of cholesterol-lowering medications would have us believe that the ideal cholesterol level is below 200mg/dl (or 5mmol/l). But cholesterol varies from 105mg/dl to 343mg/dl (or 2.8-to-8.8mmol/l) in people who are healthy.

It wasn’t that long ago when we were warned that cholesterol above 250mg/dl (6.5mmol/l) was “too high!” But, over the last few years, the threshold has progressively lowered – albeit without scientific evidence to support the lowering.

Oddly enough, decisions to lower the threshold each time were taken by ‘experts’ with links to pharmaceutical companies which manufacture Statins. And, of course, each time the threshold was lowered, millions more people became ‘eligible’ for cholesterol-lowering medications – thus increasing the market-size for the drugs.

Those with vested interests in all this have done a really good job of discombobulating people regarding what are normal cholesterol levels. In this regard, they create unnecessary fear about cholesterol for the nefarious purpose of turning otherwise healthy people into cholesterol-related patients.