Cholesterol researchers accused of showing bias

LOWERING blood cholesterol levels does not reduce deaths from heart disease and is unlikely to prevent development of the illness, according to a new study which flouts current medical thinking, writes Liz Hunt.

The author of the study, which is published in tomorrow's issue of the British Medical Journal, accuses researchers of bias in ignoring studies which have shown that lowering cholesterol had little or no impact on heart disease and focused only on studies supporting a causal link between dietary fat, cholesterol and heart disease.

Dr U Ravnskov, from Lund in Sweden, reviewed 22 cholesterol-lowering trials and found no change in the number of deaths from the illness, and only a small reduction in non-fatal heart disease. He also found that other clinical trials which supported the lowering of cholesterol were cited six times more often by researchers than the non-supportive trials. Dr Ian Baird, spokesman for the British Heart Foundation, said that advice to reduce fat in the diet to prevent heart disease still held. Dr Ravnskov's study had excluded certain trials which showed how narrowing of the coronary artery was reduced when cholesterol was lowered by drugs or diet, he said.