Doubt Cast on HDL as 'Good Cholesterol'

[Guest guest]

This Lancet article seems to be penned by a raft of heavy

weights in the world of medicine, genetics and cell physiology. Fortunately, they are very careful with

their language in this abstract,

They start with a premise, right out of the block: “Exploiting

the fact that genotypes are randomly assigned at meiosis, [and] are independent

of non-genetic confounding ….â€

But we now have this development called “epigenomics†…

meaning that while gene material does not change, function does:

genes are not independent

WikipediA definition: Epigenetics: Genomic modifications that alter gene expression that cannot be

attributed to modification of the primary DNA sequence and that are heritable mitotically and meiotically classified as

epigenetic modifications. DNA methylation and histone modification are among

the best characterized epigenetic processes ...

So it is Environment that can direct methylation of a cell,

and alter cell activity .. so phenotype matters.

The Lancet authors might appreciate the possible limitation

of this whole study in their “interpretation†…

Interpretation

Some genetic mechanisms that raise plasma HDL cholesterol do

not seem to lower risk of myocardial infarction. These data challenge the

concept that raising of plasma HDL cholesterol will uniformly translate into

reductions in risk of myocardial infarction.

“some genetic mechanisms†…ie

how you raise HDL is the issue …

which comes back to “environment, versus genetics … and heart disease is very much about

lifestyle. The French and Swiss with higher LDL have less heart disease we do

in the US, with our lower LDL numbers.

Let me direct your attention to the wonderful cell biologist

Bruce Lipton, and his book, The Biology of Belief.

http://www.brucelipton.com/wisdom-of-your-cells/the-wisdom-of-your-cells/

charlie

nutrishn@...

NATAP: Doubt Cast on HDL as 'Good Cholesterol'

NY Times By GINA KOLATA

snip