How Do We Know that Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease?
Channel: NutritionFacts.org
Date: 2017-01-13

What would happen if you randomized babies at birth to a lifetime of low cholesterol levels? Nature did it for us! In this video I introduce the concept of Mendelian randomization.

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If you don’t know your cholesterol, you should get it checked—maybe even starting in childhood. See my last video, Should All Children Have their Cholesterol Checked? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/should-all-children-have-their-cholesterol-checked).

What if you do get tested and your doctors tells you not to worry because your cholesterol’s “normal.”  Having a normal cholesterol in the society where it’s normal to drop dead of heart attack (the #1 killer of men and women!) r is not necessarily a good thing. See my video When Low Risk Means High Risk (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/when-low-risk-means-high-risk).

Check out Optimal Cholesterol Level (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/optimal-cholesterol-level) to find out where you should be.

OK, but what if your doctor tells you that your LDL is large and fluffy? See my video Does Cholesterol Size Matter? (http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Does-Cholesterol-Size-Matter).

Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-do-we-know-that-cholesterol-causes-heart-disease and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it.


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Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution!
-Michael Greger, MD FACLM

Image credit: Marty Gabel via flickr. Image has been modified.

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