From: Jock McClees <mccleesj@erols.com>

Subject: Cholesterol does not cause heart disease?

There have been a lot of messages about fibre and cholesterol recently.

However, I have seen a couple of articles indicating that cholesterol

was not a causative factor in cardiovascular disease. One was in the

August 1997 issue of American Clinical Laboratory, p. 18,21 by Prof.

William E. Stehbens. His point is that pressure and stress (within the

blood vessel, not at the office) is the key determining factor of where

lesions occur that cholesterol then tries to repair. It is a very

compelling article which to me indicates that our focus should be more

on blood pressure than on cholesterol. (Then you get into the argument

as to whether salt has any effect at all on blood pressure.)

I also heard Dr. Matthias Rath speak. He had a different focus but

corroborated Dr. Stehbens in different ways. His point was that Vitamin

C is critical in collagen formation. The blood vessel is strengthened

by collagen among other things. He also pointed out that cholesterol

occurs throughout the body yet plaque forms at points of highest

pressure and stress. To reduce the incidence of tears in the blood

vessel wall which lead to cardiovascular disease, Dr. Rath recommends

higher doses of Vitamin C than the RDA and other nutrients. Dr. Rath

has done experiments that have shown that a diet that contains only the

RDA level of Vitamin C will cause heart disease in guinea pigs (which

like humans, don't produce their own Vitamin C) A diet higher in

Vitamin C will prevent heart disease. Of course dropping the level of

Vitamin C well below the RDA leads to scurvy and death by internal

bleeding from leaky blood vessels.

Does anyone have supporting data/articles or opposing ones to these

ideas on the importance of pressure and blood vessel wall strength in

cardiovascular disease???

These make a lot more sense to me than the great focus on cholesterol.

I have seen data in the general press recently showing a large drop in

the incidence of heart attacks in the population but only a slight

lowering of cholesterol. I know that there is also new focus on

homocysteine and its effects as well as viral and bacterial infections

of the blood vessel wall but the effects above seem to be overlooked.