| Dr. Uffe Ravnskov MD, PhD |

A leader and enthusiastic educator, I am honored to bring you this interview. Thanks Uffe for your dedication and persistence! Purchase Cholesterol Myths by Dr. Ravnskov here.

Shane: For how long have you been a physician and scientist? Where did you study for your MD? PhD?

Dr. Ravnskov: I got my MD in 1961 at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. My interest in science started 5-6 years later when I worked on a medical department o a local Swedish hospital. A patient, who died with a post myocardial infarction (PMI) syndrome, had also a small ventricular aneurysm. That a patient should have two very rare diseases is highly unlikely unless they are related in some way. After a search in the nearest University library I found that almost all of those who had been reported to die from a PMI-syndrome had had a ventricular aneurysm. I suggested that the cause might have been caused by cortisone, the standard treatment for PMI-syndrome at that time, because cortisone inhibits the body´s repair mechanisms. That case report became my first scientific publication.

I worked at the Department of Nephrology in Lund, Sweden between1968 and 1979. My PhD was about proteinuria, but my main interest became the association between hydrocarbon exposure and glomerulonephritis. In a number of papers I have presented evidence that such exposure is one of the major causes of glomerulonephritis and chronic renal failure. However, most nephrologists still consider glomerulonephritis as an immunological disease in spite of numerous contradictory observations. I have summarized my research in this field on www.ravnskov.nu/index .

In 1977 I discovered that one of my co-workers had falsified part of his PhD thesis. Whistle blowers are not welcome in the academic world. So, instead of excluding the fraudulent researcher it was my research that was questioned. Finally I found the resistance from my superiors intolerable and decided to go into private practice in 1979. I soon felt an incredible freedom to think and write. As part of the academic world, at least as long as you are a subordinate, you have to follow mainstream, take other researchers view into consideration., and be careful not to question ideas or results if they come from the authorities. Medical science is not evidence-based, it is eminence-based. Looking back I also consider what I have published after that time for much better than what I produced during my university career.

Shane: When did you publish your book, Cholesterol Myths and what was the driving force?

Dr. Ravnskov: I had followed the cholesterol issue superficially since a Framingham paper published 1961 claimed that high cholesterol was the cause of atherosclerosis and heart disease. The authors based their hypothesis on the finding that people who got a heart attack on average had had a little higher cholesterol a few years earlier. Such findings do not prove causality, this is elementary, and knowing the central role of that molecule in human biology I couldn't´t understand why researchers kept such a whimsy hypothesis alive year after year.

When the cholesterol campaign was introduced in Sweden in the late eighties I therefore became very surprised. From my research around glomerulonephritis I knew that once an idea has gained acceptance by medical researchers it may survive in spite of an almost endless number of contradictions. I became curious and started to look for the scientific evidence behind the cholesterol hypothesis in more depth to see if this was another example of faulty thinking. Very soon I realized that the emperor had no clothes. I tried to publish critical comments and analyses in the medical journals, but very soon I found that they were not welcome. Besides, there were so many contradictions that I found the best way was to present them in concert in a book.

The book was published in Swedish in 1961 and in Finnish the following year, but it made little impact. In a television show in Finland it was ridiculed by the local proponents of the cholesterol campaign and at the end of the program they put the book on fire. The close-up of the burning cover with Leonardo da Vinci´s drawing of the human heart was a curious experience. For several years I tried to get my book published in England and the US without success. Most publishers and agents never returned or I was told that it had no commercial interest. In a correspondence with Mary Enig, the American researcher and biochemist who as the first one has taught us about the dangers with trans fat, I sent her the manuscript. As you know she has co-worked with Sally Fallon for many years. Sally became interested and the book was published in the US in 2000.

Shane: What was the driving force behind your organization THINCS (www.thinks.org)?

Dr. Ravnskov: To change a well-established paradigm alone without a position at a university or another institution is impossible. During the years I have got in contact with academical people who shared my concern about the cholesterol campaign, many of them are established and highly esteemed researchers. It was therefore a natural solution to the problem to work in concert with these people. In the academic world as well as in politics you can accomplish very little alone, but if working as a group you can change the world.

Shane: Please tell readers why you think the cholesterol myth is so prevalent among medical doctors today.

When I started to analyze the scientific studies claimed to back up the campaign I saw that authors of the major reviews systematically ignored all the contradictory evidence or even worse, they cited these studies as if they were supportive. In a review published in Journal of Clinical Epidemiology (1995;48:713-719) I pointed at numerous examples of such misconduct. But nobody reacted. The way established researchers in this field treat opponents is simply by ignoring them. This method is very effective. As no authoritative comments are published, anyone who happens to read critical papers therefore may see them as words from irresponsible freaks able to find a few contradictory studies on a huge mountain of peer-reviewed, supportive ones. Few doctors question what they have learnt in medical school and in this area their belief in the false cholesterol hypothesis is constantly reinforced through postdoctoral education, because governments all over the world think they save money by leaving that task to the drug companies.

Shane: What do you think is the most dangerous aspect of the cholesterol myth?

Dr. Ravnskov: Difficult to say, there are many unfortunate consequences. The demonizing of animal fat and its costs, the high consumption of carbohydrates and vegetable omega-6.rich oils, not to mention trans fat, is probably causing many of to-day´s tormenting health problems. The rising epidemic of obesity and type2 diabetes in the Western world and elsewhere is probably the most serious one, but there are many more. Another serious side is the widespread use of statin drugs among healthy people, even children. Consider that statin treatment is prescribed for the rest of these people´s life. It is simply stupidity to think that you can poison important metabolic enzymes for decades without serious consequences.

A few years ago members of THINCS published a press release pointing at the madness of the new cholesterol guidelines. In the end we expressed our concern very shortly:

"In conclusion, the new guidelines may possibly prevent cardiovascular death in a small minority of patients with cardiovascular disease. But at the same time they may increase mortality from other diseases, transform healthy individuals into unhappy hypochondriacs obsessed with the chemical composition of their food and their blood, reduce the income of ranchers and dairy farmers, undermine the art of cuisine, destroy the joy of eating, and divert health care money from the sick and the poor to the rich and the healthy. The only winners are the drug companies and imitation food industry, and the researchers that they support."

Shane: What message would you like to send to doctors who hold tight to the dangerous cholesterol myth?

Dr. Ravnskov: Read my book, or at least my website www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol . Then go to www.thincs.org to learn more and see that I am not alone with my criticism

Shane: What message would you like to send to patients (people reading this) who hold tight to the dangerous cholesterol myth?

Dr. Ravnskov: Same answer

Shane: In laymen terms, please tell readers the process by which heart disease occurs.

Dr. Ravnskov: Most researchers to-day in this field agree that inflammation of the arterial wall is the start. The crucial question is, what starts the inflammation? As cholesterol has been demonized for so many years we have not been able to clear the blackboard and rethink. Consequently, most theories still circulate around that molecule, although there are simple facts that should have passed the cholesterol hypothesis and its many variants into oblivion long ago. Most devastating is that all studies of dead people have failed to show an association between their intake of saturated fat, or their serum cholesterol, and the degree of atherosclerosis. People who avoid all saturated fat and who have low cholesterol become just as atherosclerotic as people who gorge in animal food and whose cholesterol is high.

Another misconception is that atherosclerosis is a disease. When arteries become inflamed the body immediately starts a repair process to strengthen the vascular wall. Smooth muscle cells proliferate, fibrosis follows, and later, if necessary for further strength, cholesterol and calcium are used for reinforcement. This is in particular important in the coronary arteries because due to the steady movements of the heart and the negative pressure at their outside they have to be stronger than for instance arteries running to the intestines or inside bony channels. Inflammatory processes go on now and then already from childhood; it is a natural defense mechanism and atherosclerosis should therefore be considered as scars, remnants from a long life´s combat with noxious chemicals or microorganisms.

Shane: Aside from smoking, what would you say are some things that exacerbate this "scarring?"

Dr. Ravnskov: I think that the final attack is caused by microorganisms, but this is not the only answer. Any factor that weakens our immune defense may facilitate the growth of microorganisms, also at the inside of our vessels. These factors may be environmental (toxic compounds) or nutritional. There is much evidence that microorganisms may play a role. I published a review about this issue a few years ago. This paper has since long been one of the most-frequently read article in that journal.

Shane: Let's talk about another so called risk factor for heart disease, high blood pressure. Like cholesterol, blood pressure rises with age. With your decades of experience, do you see so-called "high blood pressure," defined as anything greater than 140/90, as a risk factor for heart attack or stroke? Why or why not?

Dr. Ravnskov: Twelve years ago The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, a governmental agency, published a review of all antihypertensive drug trials. The limit for the diagnosis hypertension was settled to 140/90. Among other things the authors found that although high blood pressure was a risk factor for heart disease most trials found no effect on coronary heart disease from antihypertensive treatment, and the effect on stroke was smaller than that seen after statin treatment. Another observation was that in several trials half of the participants in the control groups, those who didn't´t get any treatment, had normal blood pressure at the end of the trial.

The report made little impact and few Swedish doctors know the small effect achieved by such treatment, probably because the conclusions of the report were utterly precautions. Evidently the world need another group, The International Network of Hypertension Skeptics.

Shane: Medical doctors rely on peer reviewed journals for drug information. Most of them see medical journals as an unbiased and scientifically sound source of information. Is this true?

Dr. Ravnskov: Certainly not. There are two books I would recommend anyone who send manuscripts to medical journals to read. Both of them are written by people with first-hand experience: Richard Smith, former editor of British Medical Journal (The trouble with medical journals. Royal Society of Medicine Press Ltd 2006) and Marcia Angell, former editor of New England Journal of Medicine (The Truth About the Drug Companies; How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (Random House 2004).