by adec » Sat Feb 17, 2007 1:35 pm
I agree with a large body of this article. And then, there are just a few stray lines of thought that see the forest despite the trees. But overall at least the message is based in pure science, and none of it is overstated to the point of being didactic. This is an arena that people like Mary Enig and Sally Fallon, who was also cited in the article, enter far too often... something Linus Pauling tried to avoid his entire professional career.
But the bottom line is: vitamin C (along with L-lysine & L-proline) is more vital to human life than statins will ever be. You can live a long healthy life without ever taking a SINGLE statin; but all life would cease without vitamin C, and many others essential and fundamental vitamins and minerals. Statins in clinical practice are essentially a problem looking for a solution.
By the way, I also appreciated the line about differentiating between predictors and biomarkers. I'm also leaning towards this unifying theory as well. The best analogy of current medical science would be a group of doctors examining a dangerous intersection for causation. At the scene they determine the skid marks proliferating the area to actually be responsible for a majority of deaths, instead of poor driving and lack of proper indicators. However, what these doctors only really succeeded in proving is simply that correlation does not imply causation.
In our case, the skid marks would represent cholesterol, oxidation, LP (a,) homocysteine, and C-reactive protein, and the actual cause would be improper nutrition -- and again, a lack of true indicators or predictors -- leading to so many of these cardiovascular deaths. And the fix is a lot simpler (and far cheaper) than we're currently led to believe. Of course being these solutions are inexpensive and therefore also unpatentable makes them only marginally profitable.... hence, the more pressing issue needing to be addressed. Profitability over ethical responsibility.