Scientists are considering revising the guidelines for heart risk as determined by your cholesterol levels.

The uncertainty of science: Scientists are considering revising the guidelines for heart risk as determined by your cholesterol levels.

The ATP IV committee has pledged to hew strictly to the science and to focus on data from randomized clinical trials, says committee chairman Neil Stone, a cardiologist at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. If so, Krumholz argues, LDL [cholesterol] targets will be cast aside because they have never been explicitly tested. Clinical trials have shown repeatedly that statins reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, but lowering LDL with other medications does not work as well. The benefits of statins may reflect their other effects on the body, including fighting inflammation, another risk factor for heart disease. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the assumption that’s been pushed for more than a decade that lowering your cholesterol will lower your risk of heart attack has never been tested or proven. If this isn’t science by myth I don’t know what is.