The higher that cholesterol levels are above 200 at age 40 the greater is the lifetime heart disease risk. This according to a study published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Individuals in the famed Framingham Heart Study from 1971 to 1996 were measured for cholesterol levels starting at age 40 and then every ten years for the above report.
Cholesterol has again been cast as villain. This is a typecasting that goes back almost half a century.
What about the rest of the cast?
Just after the beginning of the above study period Dr. Henry Alfred Schroeder, M.D., was drawing cholesterol conclusions drawn through five decades of clinical experience. His experience was through some of the most recognized universities in America. He was degreed from Yale and Columbia, and a professor at Dartmouth.
Dr. Schroeder developed the low sodium diet and first effective drug treatment for high blood pressure. He received highest accolades from the American Heart Association. Just the mention of his recognized achievements, and scientific books and articles would fill these columns for the rest of the year.
Schroeder in 1973 wrote that he observed "normal range" of cholesterol to increase every decade from the 1930s through the 1970s. He noted that this increasing "average" was anything but "normal".
This good doctor noted many cultures with higher cholesterol consumption than Americans that still had lower cholesterol levels.
Dr. Schroeder discovered that cholesterol had been miscast as villain.
Ups and downs
As cholesterol went up Dr. Schroeder found another item that went down. As the mineral chromium decreased there was a subsequent cholesterol level increase. Schroeder discovered in the 1960s that the mineral chromium controlled cholesterol.
Schroeder discovered that chromium was found in the tissues of foreign cultures with high cholesterol consumption without much heart disease, yet absent in up to almost 25% of all Americans by the age of 40.
Further investigation showed refined white sugar and refined white flour caused chromium to be lost from human tissues.
White sugars and flours as well as cholesterol levels have risen together through more than half a century. Refining of white sugars and flours removes significantly more than 90% of the chromium.
Americans are eating themselves to death.
More than time to tell
Chromium is one of the most difficult nutrients to supplement. The body uses less than 1% of common supplemental forms. Only chromium in food and from supplements that are grown is used substantially by the body. This was of great concern to Dr. Schroeder. Following is the last thing he wrote in the chapter on chromium from his 1973 book 'The Trace Elements and Man':
"Modern man makes many mistakes through lack of knowledge, but there is no excuse for his continuing his mistakes in the face of knowledge."
The government has been the primary source of knowledge from studies on chromium. 30 years later foods are still stripped of chromium and none is put back.
It is now as Dr. Henry Alfred Schroeder wrote then regarding the government in the face of knowledge that they have about chromium and heart disease: NO EXCUSE.
