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I don't get it -- cholesterol in food?
I thought the link between cholesterol in the food and cholesterol in the
blood was weak. Apparently, the drug makers think it's strong: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4327591/ -- Bob in CT Remove ".x" to reply |
#2
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I don't get it -- cholesterol in food?
Bob in CT writes: I thought the link between cholesterol in the food and cholesterol in the blood was weak. Apparently, the drug makers think it's strong: The article doesn't indicate a strong link between dietary and serum cholesterol. Just that there was *a* link, which is true. From what I've read, it seems that dietary cholesterol accounts for about 20% of serum cholesterol. Blocking that can significanly lower serum cholesterol. Didn't work for me; even on a ZERO cholesterol diet my serum numbers didn't go down. However, the liver uses cholesterol to produce bile, and if you can block the re-absorption of bile, you can lower serum cholesterol. That's what fiber does, and that seems to work for me. |
#3
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I don't get it -- cholesterol in food?
Bob in CT wrote:
I thought the link between cholesterol in the food and cholesterol in the blood was weak. Apparently, the drug makers think it's strong: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4327591/ Without even reading your link... you are investing belief in a company that stands to make billions through marketing a patented drug with god-knows how many side effects. You seem to believe that their actions are based on the health and welfare of human beings and not $$$$. If the cure to cancer was eating oregano no company would research it because their are no exclusive rights and little profit to be made in selling it. A cure eliminates your market. Treatments secure long-term customers. Time to click your heels together Dorothy. DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email) 350/328/200 Atkins since 1/12/2004 |
#4
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I don't get it -- cholesterol in food?
Bob in CT wrote in message ...
I thought the link between cholesterol in the food and cholesterol in the blood was weak. Apparently, the drug makers think it's strong: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4327591/ Some drug that blocks in some unknown way the absorption of food cholesterol. What else does it block? Nice to see corporate medical research grasping at therapies that do not have a full of elucidation of their mechanisms, yet low carb dieting is attacked as unproven and dangerous. Why don't these companies give us some free radical fighting drugs that stop cholesterol oxidation and drugs that break down calcified arterial plaques? These are actual problems as opposed to cholesterol which is produced primarily by the liver and has always been part of the human diet. If cholesterol was such a nasty substance the body would not exert so much effort to recycle bile from the gut. It's not like the gut absorbs every type of molecule and can't discriminate. Carb consumption leads directly to triglyceride production in the liver and an associated net production of LDL at the expense of HDL. Shutting this process down through diet is much more intelligent than taking drugs to block cholesterol absorption in the gut by unknown mechanisms. |
#5
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I don't get it -- cholesterol in food?
DigitalVinyl wrote in message . ..
Bob in CT wrote: I thought the link between cholesterol in the food and cholesterol in the blood was weak. Apparently, the drug makers think it's strong: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4327591/ Without even reading your link... you are investing belief in a company that stands to make billions through marketing a patented drug with god-knows how many side effects. You seem to believe that their actions are based on the health and welfare of human beings and not $$$$. If the cure to cancer was eating oregano no company would research it because their are no exclusive rights and little profit to be made in selling it. A cure eliminates your market. Treatments secure long-term customers. The above is pretty much the premise for another Atkins book about treating common human ailments with vitamins & minerals & stuff. The whole book is example after example of how a particular vitamin or mineral has shown in tests to have double or triple the efficacy of certain prescription drugs without the drugs' side effects, and yet the treatment of choice is still the drug, not the vitamin, for the reasons you just aptly stated. Really recommend the book -- here's the amazon link for more info: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books |
#6
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I don't get it -- cholesterol in food?
DigitalVinyl wrote in message . ..
Bob in CT wrote: I thought the link between cholesterol in the food and cholesterol in the blood was weak. Apparently, the drug makers think it's strong: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4327591/ Without even reading your link... you are investing belief in a company that stands to make billions through marketing a patented drug with god-knows how many side effects. You seem to believe that their actions are based on the health and welfare of human beings and not $$$$. If the cure to cancer was eating oregano no company would research it because their are no exclusive rights and little profit to be made in selling it. A cure eliminates your market. Treatments secure long-term customers. Time to click your heels together Dorothy. DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email) 350/328/200 Atkins since 1/12/2004 A nice broad sweeping indictment of an entire industry without even bothering to read the link provided. Nothing like an open mind. BTW, how would we know Oregano might be a possible cure for cancer without one of these drug companies doing extensive research? |
#8
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I don't get it -- cholesterol in food?
Sorry to meander off topic, but your post reflects some common
misconceptions about patent law and the pharmaceutical industry, which I would like to correct. I am speaking from the perspective of US law, but the basic concepts are the same throughout much of the world. DigitalVinyl wrote in message Oregano cannot be copyrighted and there are no exclusive rights. Oregano cannot be copyrighted because it is not a work of authorship fixed in tangible form and thus not appropriate subject matter for copyright. The concept you were trying to express is that oregano cannot be patented. This is true, because oregano is not novel - it is a known substance. However, if you discovered a method of using oregano, say to treat cancer, that was hitherto unknown, you could obtain a patent on that *method*. Then anyone who uses the method would be in violation of your right to exclude others from using the patented method. Every person can grow a mountain of oregano in their back yeard, even on windowsills. There is no money to be made, so it is not looked for. If it was found as such, the company would likely attempt to synthesize a chemical compound instead that was similar so they could patent and market it exclusively. That's not necessarily so. Many drugs presently on the market are still more efficiently obtained by processing natural sources than by synthesis from raw reagents. Moreover, the patentability of a compound does not depend upon whether it was synthesized, or was extracted from a natural source. Rather, it depends upon whether the compound was hitherto unknown. If you purify a chemical from oregano that no one knew was in there, and no one knew of from any other source, you may obtain a patent on the purified form of the chemical. Someone using oregano would not be in violation of such a patent, only someone using that chemical in its purified form. Indeed, even if I figured out a way to synthesize the same chemical in its purified form, I would still be in violation of your patent *on the chemical* even though I obtained the chemical in a completely different way. Or maybe yb then the 7-year patent will wear off and every drug company out there will start shipping their own version of the same drug and you can try all of them. I'm not sure where you got the seven year term from. Figuring patent terms can be somewhat complex, but they usually last a bit longer than seven years. In most of the world, a patent issuing today will expire twenty years from the date on which it was filed (or the date on which the earliest related application was filed), subject to some term adjustments. In the US, in the case of pharmaceuticals, patent terms can actually be extended where the patent owner spent some of its term in clinical trials for FDA approval. True innovation is not coming quickly from drug manufacturers. I disagree; I think there is a great deal of innovation. Unfortunately, many drugs do not make a lot of money, either because there aren't that many people who need them or because they are very expensive to manufacture and administer. So some drug companies do turn to pushing chemicals toward people who may not need them and creating disorders that their compounds can alleviate. That is why so many of them use vague and flowery advertising campaign. I remember the first 6 months I saw claritan ads, none would tell you what the drug was for, just ASK YOUR DOCTOR FOR CLARITAN. Not exactly responsible marketing of a prescription-only drug. Targetting a consumer who has no clue how to prescribe medications is the first sign that they are just pushing for money, and don't care about health. I don't disagree with your disgust with pharmaceutical advertising. Claritin is an interesting example, though; first of all, as a lifelong allergy sufferer who remembers life before Claritin, I would count it as a major innovation and a major improvement to my life. It is one of only two allergy drugs I can take that does all of the following: (1) alleviates my symptoms; (2) does not put me to sleep; (3) does not give me hives. (The other is Flonase, also a relatively new drug.) I consider Claritin a shining example of the good that pharmaceutical research can do. Moreover, the patent on Claritin recently expired, and the impending introduction of generic forms of the drug was what led the manufacturer to seek FDA approval for an over-the-counter version of the drug. Their motive was maximizing their profits, surely - but the result was that Claritin became cheaper and easier for me to get. So the system is not all bad. Have a good day, carla |
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