818-Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, October 14, 1989
BY KAY ZEOSKY
National Dairy Chairperson
TURIN, NY The next time
you go to a party, or a family get
together of some sort, check your
watch when you walk in and count
how many minutes pass before
someone starts talking about their
cholesterol. If I were a bookmak
er, I’d lay odds that you wouldn’t
wait any more than ten minutes.
It’s astounding - perfectly normal
people who used to ask you about
your kids, sports, or the weather,
find it extremely difficult to dis
cuss anything except their choles
terol levels. All of us know a few
people who have had by-passes.
One surgeon brought us a piece of
the filled artery that was removed
from my mother-in-law. It felt like
soft rubber with some chips in it
that reminded me of what I some
times scrape out of the bottom of
my teakettle.
I was all geared up to find out
the latest on cholesterol, so I
called our nearest “Healthy Heart”
program for additional informa
tion. Carol Lewis, the director,
told me that just changing from
butter to oleo is not the benefit that
a lot of people perceive it to be.
When oleo is changed to the same
consistency as butter, it is much
more highly saturated. Tub, or
softer, oleo would be lower in
cholesterol. She also urges people
not to avoid dairy products. With
the huge problem of osteoporosis
in our society, it is extremely hard
to fill our needs for calcium with
out dairy products.
Then I headed for the nearest
college library to do some
research. Those people who do
have a problem with their choles
terol have got their work cut out
for them trying to decide what is
actually in that package of food
they just picked up off the shelf.
I found that our labeling laws
need a LOT of work! Under the
existing regulations, a claim about
cholesterol does not require the
labeling of fatty acids. Thus a pro
duct that has “CHOLESTEROL
FREE” spread across the label can
be high in saturated fats. This is
pretty confusing. I also found that
a product can say “100% VEGET
ABLE OIL” and still contain
Retired
Couple
(Continued from Pege B 16)
The former owners of the farm
still live in the brick farm house.
Louise thinks she will be content
to continue to live in town and
commute to the country. Paul, on
the other hand, says, “I believe I
might like to live out here once
everything is completed.”
Louise smiles, a Cheshire cat
grin, looks at Paul and nods her
head. “You’re winning me over,
aren’t you?” she laughs.
Buying the farm also meant
buying machinery. The Longs
found a tractor in West Virginia
and then went shopping for a hay
baler. “It cost us $50,000 just to
make hay,” confesses Paul.
When the fencing is completed,
the Longs will be ready to go
cattle searching. “I’ve been read
ing some ads,” Paul says. “By the
time the fencing is finished, we’ll
be ready.”
Meantime, the couple is thor
oughly enjoying the brisk sunny
days of autumn. “As long as the
weather stays nice, I’m not a bit
sorry we got back into this,”
The Other Side Of The Cholesterol Story
highly saturated tropical oils such
as palm, palm-kernel, or coconut
oil, as well as other oils saturated
by hydrogenation. The informa
tion about nutrition per serving
can be adjusted by the manufac
turer, since he can decide what
constitutes a serving, as well as
how many servings are contained
in the box.
While muddling around there, I
came across the September issue
of The Atlantic Monthly with the
words, ‘THE CHOLESTEROL
MYTH Lowering Your Choles
terol is Next to Impossible With
Diet, And Often Dangerous With
Drugs And it Won’t Make You
Live Any Longer” splashed across
the front. The feature story, which
used most of the issue, was taken
from a book entitled Heart Fai
lure written by Thomas J. Moore
and soon to be published by Ran
dom House Inc. If you can find it
in your library, it is VERY
interesting.
Many years ago the Framing
ham researchers selected 912 men
and women and tried to match the
cholesterol levels in their diets
with the cholesterol levels in their
blood. They were surprised to
realize that they could find no
such relationship. In fact, 40 years
after the study began, the mortali
ty rate was re-examined. The
deaths from other causes of the
low cholesterol level group mostly
offset any incidence of heart
attacks. The researchers, in fact,
said that people whose cholesterol
levels are declining may be at spe
cial risk. “After 50 years the asso
ciation of mortality with choles
terol values is confounded by peo
ple whose cholesterol levels are
falling - perhaps due to diseases
predisposing to death.” That state
ment never got a lot of publicity.
William C. Taylor led a team of
researchers and physicians at Har
vard. They have put together
results of die Framingham study
and a Multiple Risk Factor
Intervention Trial (MR. FIT) doi\e
by the Task Force on Arterioscler
osis, and announced that for peo
ple without other risk factors such
as smoking or high blood pres
sure, “we calculate a gain in life
expectancy of three days to three
months from a lifelong program of
cholesterol reduction.” How do
you decide when you are 30 what
that extra month of life is worth at
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age 75? They also felt they might
be overstating the benefits of
cholesterol reduction because they
do not know whether limiting
cholesterol intake would increase
other risks. These results were
published in the Annals of Inter
nal Medicine in 1987.
Moore states that daily treat
ment of 2,000 men with severely
elevated cholesterol for seven and
a half years may have lowered the
chances of a non-fatal heart attack
from eight to seven percent, but it
did not improve life expectancy at
all.
At one time, cholesterol was
suspected of high rates of colon
cancer. It turned out that the
cancer patients had, instead, very
low levels. In 1971, Morton Lee
Pearce and Seymour Dayton
reported in The Lancet an excess
of cancer deaths in a diet trial
using diets high in polyunsatur
ated fats. Similar findings hap
pened in 1978 in experiments
done by the World Health Organi
zation. By 1980, French research
ers studied 7,603 male govern
ment employees. As the cholester
ol levels fell below 200 the
incidence of cancer climbed stead-
O SERVICE
677 W. High St.
Manheim, Pa.
17545
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ily. They felt that it “in all proba
bility reflects the advance of the
clinical course of cancer.” In 1987 (
the National Health Nutrition and
Examination Survey of 12,488
men and women, the men with the
lowest cholesterol levels were
more than twice as likely to be
diagnosed with cancer than those
with the highest cholesterol levels.
Michael F. Oliver, a British heart
researcher asks, “How much
cholesterol can be depleted from
cell membranes over so many
years without alteration of their
function?” Could those cells then
admit carcinogens?
A cholesterol lowering drug
was given to 1,906 men at
extremely high risk of heart attack
fa - 7.4 years. There were fewer
heart attacks, but there was no
effect on life expectancy. Moore
says a total of $23 million in drugs
may have prevented 36 heart
attacks. That’s $647,205 per heart
attack forestalled.
Many tests are highly inaccu-i
rate. Walt Bogdanich, a Wall'
Street Journal reporter sent
blood samples to five different
laboratories. The results placed
(Turn to Pag* B 19)
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