“Rubin Carter was falsely tried
The crime was murder ‘one’ guess who testified
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool’s hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.”
–Bob Dylan

In 1966, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was convicted of a triple murder in New Jersey. He was subsequently found not guilty and exonerated in 1985 after spending almost 20 years in jail for a crime he never committed.

Cholesterol and the Hurricane

It was only some ten years later that a similar injustice took place—one that convicted cholesterol and dietary fats as the leading cause of heart disease. At the time, heart disease was (and still is) the leading cause of death world-wide. Cholesterol was convicted as a mass murderer.

However, with the ‘offender’ behind bars, the silent crime spree began. Replace the flavor of fats with sugar. Fructose—it’s fruit sugar, don’t you know? Healthy.

High fructose corn syrup? Corn is a vegetable, so it must be even healthier.

Fat Free. Low Cholesterol. Packages in the food aisles screamed this out.

The result? Obesity levels never seen before on this planet. Heart disease killing more and more people every year. Skyrocketing health care costs.

Fast forward to today, almost forty years later.

Cholesterol: Not Guilty

A draft of the 2015 edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans, created by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, now states that “cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for over-consumption.”

Time Magazine recently reported,

“[I]n the latest review of studies that investigated the link between dietary fat and causes of death, researchers say the guidelines got it all wrong. In fact, recommendations to reduce the amount of fat we eat every day should never have been made.”

The Open Heart journal recently published research done by a team led by Zoe Harcombe, PhD that concludes there was no scientific basis for the recommendations to cut fat from our diet in the first place.

The reality? Cholesterol is essential to life. Without it, we die. We need good fats as a staple in the foods we eat and as part of a healthy lifestyle. That means, conversely, that low-fat and low-cholesterol diets are harmful. It means giving serious consideration to the necessity of cholesterol-lowering stain drugs and knowing that lifestyle changes can be the answer without the side effects of medicating.

A new twist on Bob Dylan’s song:

“Dietary cholesterol was falsely tried
The crime was murder ‘one’ guess who testified
The FDA and Big Pharma and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers they all went along for the ride
How can the life of good fatty foods
Be in the palm of these foolish dudes?
To see them obviously framed
Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where our health is a game.”