| First, I'm still not clear on your logic. On the one hand, there is a debate about whether consuming saturated fats cause heart disease. On the other hand, there is the issue of whether statins prevent heart disease. To me these are logically separate issues, yet you seem to think they are related, and my best guess at what you were hinting at seems to be wrong. So can you tell me: how would whether a doctor wants to prescribe a pill for X instead of preventing X, have anything to do with whether Y causes X. On the evidence of saturated fat and heart disease, I will as usual defer to Wikipedia: "Whether saturated fat is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a question with numerous controversial views. Although most in the mainstream heart-health, government, and medical communities hold that saturated fat is a risk factor for CVD, some recent studies have produced conflicting results." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascula... |
On your second point, they are very much linked issues if X is something that does not need to be treated or prevented. That's what the article is really getting at: high cholesterol is not the primary risk factor for heart disease. They are correlated, sure, but there's not a causal link.
Saturated fat has been demonised since the 1970s when a landmark study concluded that there was a correlation between incidence of coronary heart disease and total cholesterol, which then correlated with the percentage of calories provided by saturated fat, explains Malhotra. “But correlation is not causation,” he says. Nevertheless, we were advised to “reduce fat intake to 30% of total energy and a fall in saturated fat intake to 10%.”
He points out that recent studies “have not supported any significant association between saturated fat intake and risk of CVD.” Instead, saturated fat has been found to be protective.
Seriously, read the whole article.