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BY MALCOLM KENDRICK

‘For every complicated problem there is a solution that is simple, direct, understandable, and wrong.’

H L MENCKEN

THE MYTH: A high cholesterol intake causes heart disease.

THE FACT: Cholesterol levels are not affected by cholesterol intake, and in any case there is no evidence to suggest that cholesterol and heart disease are linked.

If you eat too much cholesterol, or saturated fat, your blood cholesterol will rise to dangerous levels. Excess cholesterol will then seep through your artery walls causing thickenings (plaques), which will eventually block blood flow in vital arteries, resulting in heart attacks and strokes.

Scientific hypotheses don’t get much simpler than this, the cholesterol, or diet-heart hypothesis, which has broken free from the ivory towers of academia to impact with massive force on society.

It has driven a widespread change in the type of food we are told to eat, and consequently the food that lines the supermarket shelves. Many people view bacon and eggs as a dangerous killer, butter is shunned, and a multibillion-pound industry has sprung up providing ‘healthy’ low-fat alternatives.

At the same time, millions of people are prescribed statins to lower cholesterol levels, and each new set of guidelines suggests ever more lowering of cholesterol is needed. When it comes to explaining what causes heart disease, the cholesterol hypothesis reigns supreme.